Gathering

Daniel Firman’s very first statue was a mould of his body and was initially a performance in which he stacked a large number of objects on his body. The French artist, born in 1966, turned the performance into a series of sculptures, as a tangible reminder of the experience. Firman’s works often originate from a gesture, process or a performance.

The collection of recognisable, discarded materials you see in ‘Gathering’ is not random. Firman gathers objects he finds and laminates and paints them, thus creating a whole that resembles plastiglomerates, a fusion of plastic and stone. None of it can be reused or recycled. Firman’s work highlights his preoccupation with the separation between body and object, between human activity and the natural world. If you walk around the statue and look at it, you may become aware that the objects we leave behind never really leave us. Firman pauses time and motion for a moment. A delicate balance.

The “Gathering” series is inspired by the ideas of dancer and choreographer Rudolf von Laban, who distinguishes between gathering and scattering. Two behaviours that humans have performed since the beginning of time. Gathering is the gesture that draws towards the body, and scattering is the gesture that moves away from the body. Both actions are connected with breath, dance and the interaction between humans and their immediate environment. Although the work looks chaotic, the way in which the body, shaped as the artist himself, organises the chaos suggests a kind of structure. ”Carrying’ transforms disorder into a form that we understand and appreciate as art.