Review
Elodie Seguin. Look Loop
September 15, 2024 – March 9, 2025
PEAC, Freiburg im Breisgau
Elodie Seguin performs at PEAC. For her first institutional solo exhibition in Germany, the artist has conceived nine site specific interventions, through which she wraps up questions Seguin has been investigating for the past 15 years:
How to render the invisible visible?
What is the monochrome beyond the canvas?
What’s the materiality of colour and light?
The installation is clean, yet not sterile. There’s life, a subtle pun. The exhibition itinerary unfolds between minimalism and colour experiments, monochromacy and transparency, transformation and temporality.
Room I
A black ‘T’-shape on white consoles. The form creates a dialogue with the high window looking onto the trucks of an industrial car park. Most of them are black & white, too.
The materials are acrylic paint and MDF. The work points to the question of negative and positive space, covering and leaving out. There is a pictorial moment in the installation; and a physical dimension to the – perceived – image.
Room II
A wall of plastic bags filled with water. Strangely enough, the odd material becomes monochrome and minimal in its accumulation.
PEAC [Paul Ege Art Collection] is a private institution and art collection with a focus on minimal and conceptual art as well as color field painting. Its exhibition programme centers around practices of an expansion of the image, a theme which perfectly aligns with Seguin’s artistic endeavours.
For the installation in the second room, Seguin has mounted 457 bags filled with water. The transparent bags, originally designed for fish transport, hint to the question of how to make invisible visible. The work simultaneously relates to 16-century Dutch painting with its magnificent representations of glass and water; and minimalism and the ready-made. In a contemporary twist, the work constitutes their fusion with a sensual and ironic turn.
Room III
An alley of paper steels leaning on the left and right walls in the direction of walking. The bright shades of orange and yellow form a reference to Josef Alber’s Homage to the square. A visual treatise on colour, filling the room with light and life. A representation of light, with an immediately positive effect on the body and mind.
Seguin mixes all her colours herself, her palette centering around pastel and neon shades, yellow, and orange. The artist regards colour as a dimension to and of perception whereby she establishes a dialogue to modern discourses of art and painting. With minimal means, Seguin reaches a maximum effect
Room IV
Coloured geometrical forms in transparent shapes mounted on the wall. Again, a reference to Modernism, Constructivism and De Stijl in particular. The work forms part of an existing body work which is presented in new constellations in every time it is being exhibited.
The work evokes both a repetitive, industrial process and childish spontaneity. In contrast to their serious modern counterparts, Seguin again introduces irony. The geometrical forms are broken up by pastel rose and neon green; the leaned shapes convey freedom and disorder instead of rigidity. It is children’s paint boxes.
Room V
An installation of painting materials. An abandoned work site, behind a curtain of cut paper.
The work functions as an interruption, a moment of pause in the exhibition itinerary. And as an insight to the artist’s process. Peek / PEAC.
Room VI
An excursus to Classicism: Steels on the walls, semi-reliefs of chairs and tables. An interior in orange, yellow, black and white, a reference to George Segal. You may sit down – but no.
The question of negative and positive space comes up again, this time with an emphasis on physicality. The life-size shapes invite the viewer, while the flatness and sterility of the shapes underline the illusion.
Room VII
An opening towards the front window: full-height plexi glass plates in neon yellow mounted in front of the wall. The artificial light is stunningly reflected and multiplied. Little red dots on the plates allude to electronic devices and switching panels, creating visual anchor points – this is meticulously fun.
The parcours is a flow. With each room, Seguin presents a new surprise, constructing a web of cross-references over the course of the show.
Room VIII
Folded paper steels, again mounted on the wall. Works between relief, sculpture, and painting. The stable and hard forms out of unstable, soft material relate to Dan Flavin and Dondald Judd. Minimalism in paper and paint, taking on a soft, foldable – female ? – twist.
All structures within the exhibition – except for room IV – were created on-site for the duration of the exhibition only. It is a temporary coming-together of different veins of investigation. The installation is light but dedicated, thought-through with a great potential for spontaneous encounter.
Room IX
A fountain, a bathtub, a balustrade. A superposition of red and pale blue paint behind a balustrade of plaster and plexi glass. The colours form an inverted horizon alluding to landscape painting and interior views. The image stands pars pro toto for the exhibition: it is calm, yet intriguing, minimal with an ambience.
The red paint conveys a sense of solidity and statement: this well-curated exhibition forms both a closing and a point of departure.