Animal prisms
Capture a movement, a shadow, a breath. The animal is both the subject of observation and creation. Detailed or synthesized in a work of art, its forms bear the gaze of man. And of Man. The observer and the creator. Through historical and temporal prisms, which can reveal as much about the individual as about his time.
Between craftsmanship and art, taxidermy, its practices and its history speak volumes. Today, certain installations are turning taxidermy into a field of representation. Such is the case with the work of visual artists Damien Hirst, Wim Delvoye, Julien Salaud and Claire Morgan, who take up this ancient method of preservation in their own unique way. Trophies become vehicles for artistic expression. Their envelope and their eye no longer simply survive time: they renew it.
William Geffroy's glass marine figures, with their realism and virtuosity of execution, represent the very process of animal conservation. Part taxidermy, part scientific sample, the work reveals a trompe-l'œil subject: the animal and the fixation of its form over time. A memory. That of its material, and that of its presence. The artist's work was awarded the Prix de la Section Naturaliste at the Salon des Beaux-Arts, held at Deyrolle last June. The jury included researchers, academics and entrepreneurs such as Stéphane Laurent, art historian, Pascale Joannot, doctor in oceanography, Patrice Besse, company director, and Edouard Challemel du Rozier, founder of Bail Art.
The animal world is vast. And so is the creation that surrounds it. It binds us to it with all its might, even though man seems to have built himself by marking his difference from it. And yet, our gaze binds us to it. And gives us a place to think.
Mahault de Raymond-Cahuzac
Image: Maison Deyrolle, Paris - Photo credit © Edouard Challemel du Rozier
