Programming

It is a reflection on the object and the sculpture that Valerie Blass proposes here. The object-sculpture is placed there, in front of the eye. But in front of which gaze and in front of whose gaze? Valérie Blass sets up a triangular device where three entities interact: the object itself, such as in itself it offers itself in all its opacity, we, the human beings, and the Other, the foreigner, the animal, of which we would like to know exactly what it perceives. What can an animal do with an object said to be abstract and designed to resemble nothing? But, let us stop being naive. The question also becomes ours, as soon as we try to integrate these objects in our intimate environment. And the objects exhibited by Valerie Blass are deliberately problematic. Whether it be their forms, their materials, their textures, they raise expectations and then immediately disabuse them of their meaning. All the usual parameters of sculpture are rendered equivocal here. The sculptures are of a troubled abstraction. One thinks one recognizes figures that quickly dissolve into the undecidable. We perceive them as heavy, but we understand that they are light. We would like to touch them, but the idea of art orders us morally to respect the prohibition "Do not touch the works". In this round of three, it is, according to the artist himself, the art object that has the last word. It seems to ironize on our astonishment and our incapacity to seize it. He looks at us looking at him, mocking the ignorance of these strange human animals about what is their own and what is foreign to them.