La Fabrique des Gisants
(The Recumbent Factory)
wood, glass, perfumed water, massive amount of jelly and various bathers
International Perfume Museum, Grasse - 2014
that plays with the «grenouille» myth developed by P. Suskind into Le Parfum.
This project especially was created for the International Perfume Museum of Grasse, the historical capital city of perfume located into the French Riviera.
La Fabrique des Gisants is both an experimental laboratory for taking care of the museum labour and a production tool for creating recumbent into this medieval city.
I proposed to prepare a bath for some volunteer who worked into the museum. It was not a simple bath but a bath perfumed with the iconic local perfume: La Rose de Grasse. The baths were done during closing time so privacy was preserved at first.
After this delicate moment of beauty, I attempted to stand alive a bit longer this ephemeral and intimate event. My solution was to jelly the entire bath. It results as a renewed version of recumbent: a 80 litters jelly sculpture. Each recumbent was titled with the first name of each participant.
It is another way to do a portrait, a portrait of a body that tried to be more beautiful, a real body that passed by, a body shaped by a social system that constraints Beauty.
But beauty is a fragile cultural concept that tends to avoid and hide the reality of our biology. This artwork tried not to do so I removed any plumbing system. All that was in the bath stayed into the bath and jellified. Each volunteer couldn’t hide the rude reality of its biology: hairs, scurf and other fallen substances were trapped exposed to the public.
Days after days, each recumbent lost part of its water and humidify the ambient air. Maybe never before the museum workers have been in such symbiosis with their job? Unfortunately, after few months, each recumbent fades and ends so beautifully as a giant piece of dried skin.
Why it seems so difficult to face the biological and ephemeral nature of our body?