Le philosophe, 2021
Alain Quercia

Artistic approach

Alain Quercia seeks to understand and make visible his relationship to the world by questioning the contemporary beings that we are. To examine this relationship, he looked at the junction point between these two systems: the skin. 

This organ maintains deep connections with our brain; it is he who brings us into contact with the world. It represents a real interface, a common limit holding information on these two systems and promoting communication in a reciprocal movement. In this sense, looking at one's skin amounts to looking at the other through oneself, or conversely looking at oneself through the other; this mechanism engenders otherness.

This organ is the common thread of the artist's practice. He considers it as much as a living material to be modeled, as a support for reflection allowing us to reveal the world around us.
Alain Quercia restores the importance of connections to others and the responsibility we have towards them. Familiar surroundings - be it a landscape or people - eventually no longer touch us. The skin forces us to reestablish this contact. 

The artist seeks to place the viewer in discomfort so that he sees again. It can be by a sculpture close to hyperrealism - we experience a form of fascination to see ourselves, or even by the manufacture of an unusual object: a man's head appearing cut off seen from the front, but having the body of a dog. 

 This unexpected coming together destabilizes the viewer and triggers a reflection to explain what he sees. He then takes a step aside from his initial posture and develops a hypothesis, a story. Indeed, incomprehension pushes us to create stories in order to make the world intelligible, to give it meaning and thus to get out of the anxiety of the unknown. To support this story, the artist incorporates archetypes - skull, crown of thorns, rat - in his sculptures, notably in the “Persona" series.

Many of his ceramic figures are decked out with a mask representing an animal. The mask symbolizes our reflex, more or less conscious, to hide our true nature; it is also a means of revealing oneself in anonymity. On another scale, the mathematician Alain Connes explains that time is a mask on the quantum world. In other words, it is the solution that Man would have imagined to explain, with his own means and faculties, the universe in which he evolves. 

The sculpture "Augmented Man" is a way of representing this time, the importance of transmission, and of signifying that Man can only enrich himself (and therefore from the other) and not by connecting to a technology.

The shapes produced by the plastic artist are both sober and precious. Sober because it puts forward its point bluntly, in an economy of symbols. Precious because he strives to respect and magnify the materials whatever they are: fabric, porcelain, enamel, skin, bronze. The result is pieces that we want to keep close to us, like an oracle who guides us.

Artistic journey

Personal exhibitions

2013 HERE, Galerie Nunc, Paris
2011 · Second skin, Fort Barraux, Biennale de Lyon, Résonances
2007 Artists are my skin, Cinema Le Méliès, Saint Etienne
2006 In The measure of target skin, Galerie Ô Quai des Arts, Vevey (Switzerland)
2005 In Corporea (Skene event), Palazzo Opesso, Chieri (Italy)
2005 L'Espace BA, Sainte-Croix-en-Jarez
2004 · Other chairs, Galerie des 7 Collines, Vienne
2002 Alternessence, Atelier Cent38, Faculty of Sociology, University Domain, Grenoble
2002 L'Espace BA, Sainte-Croix-en-Jarez
2001 Alter, Galerie des 7 Collines, Vienne
2001 Alter, installation, Galerie Jean-Marc Laik, Koblenz (Germany), Contemporary art fair St'Art, Strasbourg
1999 In Flux, Galerie Cornici & Design, Chieri (Italy)
1999 Untitled, Galerie Rome, Grenoble

Collective exhibitions

2017 Between dog and wolf, Galerie Hebert, Grenoble
2013 · The tree that hides the forest, Musicalame bookstore, Biennale de Lyon, Résonnances 2010 · L'art au carré, Lyon
2008 Drawings, Galerie Ô Quai des Arts, Vevey
2007 UCD Un Certain Détachement, VOG contemporary art space, Fontaine
2002 · Catch sight off… Avvistamenti, “Espace", Turin (Italy)
2000 · Skene: "pittura-teatro", Galerie Cornici & Design, Chieri (Italy)
1999 André Raboud invites six young artists, Musée de la Ville de Martigny, Musée Hébert, La Tronche
1998 · Galerie Delio Romang, Gstaad, Switzerland
1997 · Galerie Lézard'ailleurs, Saint-Rémy-de Provence 1996 Château d'Ouchy, Lausanne
1995 SHIRM Gallery, Strasbourg

Residential homes

2016 · Aporia creation residency at the Transdisciplinary Scenic Space, Université Grenoble Alpes
2017Aporia creation residency at PRUNIER SAUVAGE, within the framework of the Parc des Arts, Grenoble
2016 Aporia creation residency at DOMUS, LIG laboratory, St Martin d'Hères university campus
2007 · Realization of the short film: The artists is my skin as part of a residency at CINEX (eccentric cinema), Grenoble

Private collections

2019 · Creation of a monumental bronze sculpture for a private Swiss collector.
2015 · Creation of a monumental sculpture for the Sculpture Park of St Jean de Chépy, France.

Scenography and live performance

2018 First performances in front of an audience of Aporia at the Transdisciplinary Scenic Space, Université Grenoble Alpes. Role of actor-performer with an audience immersed in the scenographic space.
2015-17 · Aporia, scenography (accompanied by K. Glarner) and staging of Combat de nègre et de chien by BM Koltès, experimental immersion of the public between theater and contemporary art. Meeting with Kaspar Glarner (international scenographer).
2014 · Creation of sculptures and masks for La Compagnie Yoann Bourgeois.
Intervention at the Théâtre du Soleil by Ariane Mnouchkine as a decorative painter for a Mac Beth by Shakespeare.
2008 · Collaboration with the theater company La saillie de Grenoble, production of a life-size puppet for a Mac Beth by Shakespeare.
2003 · Choreographic and plastic performances with the choreographer Akiko Kajihara (Grenoble and Tokyo).

Symposia and interventions

2013 · Speaker as a plastic surgeon at the Neurosciences, Aesthetics and Complexity Day - Paris-Descartes University - Paris.
2013 · Speaker with Vincent Sorrel (documentary filmmaker) at the conference: mobile screens organized by LUX, national stage in Valence.
2009 · Speaker as a plastic surgeon at the Round Table: ART ET CENSURE - debate organized at La Bobine by the Grenoble School of Management.
2007 · Intervening as a plastic surgeon at the colloquium In human body? - the body modified between Art, Science and Society in Paris at the Palais de la Découverte.

Publications

2019 The Monsters - Strange and fantastic creatures, from prehistory to science fiction, Martial Guédron - Editions Beaux Arts.
2004 Poste restante - Sylvie Azuara / Alain Quercia - Carnet des Sept Collines n ° 12
Editions Jean-Pierre Huguet

Training

2013 · Training of scenographer at ENSATT in Lyon.
1991-92 · University cycle in sociology of Art at the Pierre Mendès France University in Grenoble. Research on the "mirror" effect between contemporary art and the society that hosts it.
1990 · Parade at the Villa Medici in Rome on the theme Silk skin.
1988-90 · Accademia di Costume e di Moda, Rome (Italy).