Denis Chetboune

Been born in 1955, Denis Chetboune claims himself as a self-taught. His child-hood in Africa, its numerous journeys develop its inclination to wander, to detect while wandering around: « never asks your way to somebody who knows it, you may not be able to get lost ».

From the museums he visits, from the masters who inspire him, he mostly learns how to forget. His many peregrinations raised in him much questioning, as for human being and his destiny. His sculptures are his answers to his questions. He created them so that they have a free dialogue with the watcher. « I switched on a light, and if it attracts you, up to you to bang against it again and again, like a moth.

In any case, in the early hours you will die. Without having understood anything. Because there is nothing to understand ». Denis Chetboune although working a material and a technique allowing multiples mostly produces only unique pieces. This choice is linked to the originality of his method, which does not respect the traditional use of bronze works, which consists in making a plaster or a clay sculpture, then make a mould out of it. From this mould one can then establish a wax piece, from which the foundry workshop will make a bronze called «lost wax». If the wax is lost, the initial mould itself is not it and thus allows renewing the operation.

Therefore the possible production of a number of identical originals singled out through their ranking number: the multiples. As for Denis Chetboune, he works directly with the wax. He skips the mould stage and thus refrains himself from any possibility of duplication. His wax represents fragmented elements of the whole that will constitute the final work. He then softens these last ones into water to remove part of their tonicity and give them paradoxical languor and decay, in the nature of the constitutive material of the final piece, and in the extraordinary dynamism that this one will express. Once out of the foundry, assembling the parts to form the whole begins.

The different fragments are assembled, reorganized then welded one to the other. Some are removed because not presenting any positive contribution in regard of the artist’s criteria of requirement. The non-representation of entire body parts reduces the individual dimension of every element to the benefit of the whole cohesion and dynamics.

Only supporting points and the lines describing the global movement are taken into account. The often very pronounced obliqueness of the «parts in movement» suggests a subordination to an important speed, a compulsory condition to the preservation of balance. The piece seems carried away by an irresistible impetus of which the origin and the destination depend only on the imagination of the one who watches. As for the discontinuity of the forms, it allows the look to pass and articulates the different volumes in which the piece evolves.

The artist thus lets us see simultaneously the space within the work, bounded by the «skin» of the characters or the objects, the «outside» space in which it stands, and the disturbance which, because of its «movement», the first inflicts to the second. And thus, the initial carrying impetus is overlapped by the representation of its trajectory.

Prizes and awards :
2010 - First prize for sculpture awarded by the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts
2011 - Prize for sculpture awarded by the Taylor foundation.
Second prize for sculpture awarded by the haras nationaux