“I create worlds and see if they function.”

    This statement, made by David Lynch, could describe the practice of La Fratrie. The duo’s new series resembles a succession of hybrid objects whose uncertain character oscillates between sculpture, miniature and assemblage, and whose scale initially produces a distance from reality only to invite our closer inspection. (…)
    From merry-go-rounds constructed out of a formidable assemblage of miniscule wood fragments to an architectural pastiche of a second-rate casino (or nightclub) made of painted cardboard scraps, these constructions recall a certain dilapidation or at least precariousness. Whether crushing into sludge, falling into ruins, threatening to fall apart or simply disclosing a kind of erosion or attrition, they seem to incarnate the laborious attempts of human construction which, despite their occasionally imposing character, are destined to disappear. These works thus emerge as veritable contemporary memento mori. “All is vanity,” as the Ecclesiastes say. (…)
    It seems that the tension created by these incessant back and forths between gravity and levity are deployed by a precise selection and arrangement of various miniature objects used to embellish the surface of these islands. Judicial compositional choices transform their anecdotal character so that one faces, so to speak, a three-dimensional painting in which each visual element stands in silent dialogue with the others.
    The intrinsic force emanating from the objects creates a mysterious atmosphere where time is suspended, reminiscent of the power in the objects of Vermeer’s compositions, where the inert takes on Muta eloquentia, privileging a metaphysical potentiality. They sometimes incorporate other kinds of signs, that is, words, in the form of labels whose incursion on the scene introduces semantic play. (…)
    These layers of complex meanings find their balance through a series of displacements, interferences, unresolved conflicts between surface and depth, and ultimately, between the material and spiritual worlds. The surface of each island resembles the junction of two worlds that echo, connect and repel each other. Rather than speaking of surface, one should talk in terms of interface, because interface entails an inverse, an “underground” world that is invisible but just as important. This postulate of another world is plainly revealed in A last game, a last drink, a new life, whose surface, as if covered in a dark and shiny blue enamel, evokes the troubled waters of a swamp. This uncertain expanse acts like a mirror reflecting the spectator’s world. Yet the casino appears to founder in the depths of this disquieting peat, suggesting a hidden, invisible hinterland. One thinks of Alice’s mirror or a Möbius strip, an inversion of the world become possible.  

Olivia Wauquier.