Le Grand Café, Contemporary Art Centre, Saint-Nazaire presents Nicolas Deshayes: Chambre froide and Stéphane Thidet: Bruit rose

July 8–September 11, 2022

Le Grand Café—Contemporary Art Centre is hosting two shows this summer, one on-site at the art center and the other at LiFE, a submarine base.

At Le Grand Café—Contemporary Art Centre, June 4–September 11, 2022

Nicolas Deshayes: Chambre froide [Cold Store]

Sculptor Nicolas Deshayes employs industrial techniques, which he then subverts with natural gestures. There are many ways to interpret his sometimes phantasmagorical or baroque formal cosmos, from the workings of everyday things to mutant bodies. Although his favorite materials—bronze, cast aluminum, or ceramic—are rigid, Nicolas Deshayes creates sculptures that give the impression of being malleable. Although the body is always present, it is only in fragments, and we may make out enigmatic organic structures, bare skin, and membranes that resemble skin—the organ of surface and communication between the inside and outside.

Is it a matter of people, animals, or hybrid creatures undergoing a complete transformation akin to a chrysalis? His sculptures’ many scales make things difficult to understand. Others show the genuine porosity of organisms, materials, and things, while some of them mimic circulatory systems that can transfer heat or water in place of physiological fluids. His enigmatic sculpture, which draws inspiration from several different places, elicits emotions that range from the trivial to the fantastic.

Biography
Born in France in 1983, Nicolas Deshayes lives and works in Dover, Kent (Great Britain).

He graduated from Chelsea College of Art and Design in 2005 and the Royal College of Art in London (GB) in 2009.

Recently, Nicolas Deshayes had solo shows at Modern Art, London (ongoing); Le Creux de l’Enfer art centre in Thiers and at the Frac Grand Large in Dunkirk (France, 2021); E-werk, Luckenwalde (Germany, 2019); Basement Roma, Roma (Italy, 2018); Tate St Ives, Cornwall (GB, 2015); Glasgow Sculpture Studios, Glasgow (GB, 2015) and S1 Artspace, Sheffield (Sheffield, 2013).

Nicolas Deshayes is represented by Modern Art (London).

At LiFE—submarine base, July 8–October 2, 2022

Stéphane Thidet: Bruit rose [Pink Noise]

Stéphane Thidet, a visual artist, is fascinated to overflowing and flows. He prefers to sculpt live things and natural components, although his methods are not naturalistic. The artist rarely develops new shapes; instead, she chooses to envision and build scenarios based on taking familiar materials and considering their potential for something new. This results in a work that is composed of displacement processes. His approach might be succinctly described as the act of using things in a different way, and when he uses water or sand to create sculptures, it’s as much about experiencing the power of nature as it is about examining the human psyche.

He exhibited Rideau [Curtain], a thunderous waterfall spilling from the façade of the Opéra Graslin, his magnificent Voyage à Nantes commission in 2020. He pictured filling the LiFE with an altogether new installation that echoed the massive grandeur of the submarine base’s architectural design. The pandemic delayed this proposal until the summer of 2022. The piece, Bruit rose [Pink Noise], which revisits the waterfall subject and moves it in a geological direction, conjures paradoxical imagery such as respiration and collapse as well as ferocious force and fragility.

Biography
Born in 1974, Stéphane Thidet lives and works in Paris, France.
He graduated from the École supérieure d’art et de design Le Havre—Rouen and the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts Paris.

Ongoing collective shows: Utopia, Lille3000, France; Guizhou Provincial Museum, Guiyang, China; Maat, Lisbon, Portugal

Recent solo shows (selection): Laurence Bernard Gallery, Genève (Switzerland, 2020); Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire (France, 2019); La Conciergerie, Paris (2018);Chiesa di Santa Monica, Florence (Italy, 2018); La Maréchalerie, Versailles (France, 2018)

Stéphane Thidet is represented by Aline Vidal (Paris).
 

Curator: Sophie Legrandjacques, director of Le Grand Café—Contemporary Art Centre