Life in the Folds
As we know, the sculptor has a particular relationship with matter. If he is a modeller, he must add matter; if he is a caster, he must transpose it; and if he is a carver, he must remove it, in order to reveal the form. It is rare to master all these approaches: Rodin worked through modelling and casting (elevating the art of collage in sculpture to new heights), yet relied on studio assistants for carving marble (some of whom, such as Camille Claudel and Bourdelle, possessed remarkable talent of their own, sometimes leaving the workshop abruptly, as Brancusi did). Their task was to rough out the blocks, reduce them, transfer the measurements of the plaster model, hollow out the material repeatedly until the general silhouette emerged, refine its contours, incise details and finally polish the surface with sandpaper to bring it to life.
Laurence Jenkell discovered these stages as a self-taught artist; for her, the artist's 'kitchen' was to be taken literally. She experimented with her first inclusions, flows, heating and moulding in a domestic oven, and after several years of research and experimentation, she achieved perfect mastery of softening and shaping plexiglass. Through the 'wrapping' gesture, this cosmic torsion of matter, she brought it to a level of formal perfection that opened up an infinity of creative possibilities.
Plexiglass is a demanding material, not easily handled, as it is capricious, resistant and stubborn. It has been industrially produced since the late 1930s and is closely linked to the human body, as our tissues are far more compatible with it than with glass. It was first used by the optometrist Heinrich Wöhlk to create contact lenses for his own use. Yet few sculptors have worked with it, and even fewer have attempted to mould it. Examples include César, who compressed sheets of it from the mid-1970s after using it in 1971 to cover objects with transparent wrapping; John Armleder, who folded it in the mid-1990s to create his 'Perspex Sculptures'; and the pioneer Jean-Claude Farhi, whose 1968 exhibition at Galerie Iris Clert in Paris saw him exploit its optical possibilities more fully than anyone else.
However, none of them ventured beyond these optical possibilities, which are primarily derived from the refraction of light along the edges of blocks, to explore the strictly sculptural formal opportunities offered by this new material. Laurence Jenkell’s recent explorations open up new possibilities in this area. Like Rodin, she has explored the potential of transferring a model into a matrix by transposing her 'wrappings', which are fundamental expressions of Perspex, into materials that are emblematic of the history of sculpture. In doing so, she tests their validity: can forms born from the specific properties of a given material — plexiglass — possess autonomous aesthetic potential?
Designers were the first to work in this way, yet the art world is now developing a new awareness that could be described as environmental and mental ecology. It is clear that art can no longer be seen as merely "adding objects to objects". The positions are multiple — DIY aesthetics, recycling, diversion, appropriation, immateriality and virtuality — but they share a common foundation: the need to return to the fundamentally 'mental' nature of art. Consequently, art history as a discipline devoted to the study of artworks, their place in history and the meanings they embody, may itself be on the verge of disappearing — precisely due to a lack of physical artefacts.
Nicknamed the 'Pope of Design', Ettore Sottsass was among the first to raise awareness: 'We certainly need something to sit on — no doubt about that — but can someone explain to me why there are a hundred million different chairs, a hundred more made of plastic, not to mention all the others? What can I do about it?' he asked, adding: 'For me, design is not about shaping a product — some more or less stupid product for some more or less luxurious industry. Design is a way of discussing life, social relations, politics, cooking, and even design itself.'
Similarly, designer Enzo Mari likely never 'invented' a single form, instead striving to derive the only possible form by taking into account all the technical and human parameters of production. This form would express a perfectly contemporary state of matter and human transformative capacities while granting the greatest dignity to workers. Thus, the truncated shape and curved rail handle of his Java box (1969) owe their existence to the desire to eliminate the hinge, whose installation caused unnecessary labour. Meanwhile, the Bamboo vases of the same year, born from thermoformed plumbing pipes, could later be translated into porcelain biscuit.
Laurence Jenkell works in a similar way when she translates her 'wrapping' into cast aluminium ('Coffee Maker Wrapping', 'Wrapping Fridge', 'Wrapping Trashcan' or 'Jelly Wrap'): the gesture of torsion emerged during her experiments with plexiglass and she explores it further by translating it into another material with radically different constraints and possibilities. Aluminium and plexiglass differ in density, grain and luminosity. By transposing her signature form, Laurence Jenkell opens up a new range of possibilities and renews her sculptural gesture profoundly. Just as she once relied on viewers' universal familiarity with the signifier 'candy', she now relies on art audiences' growing familiarity with the 'wrapping' form extrapolated from it to reach more deeply into their consciousness.
Art history has been over for exactly thirty years. In Les Objets-plus, the renowned critic Pierre Restany — who initiated the Nouveaux Réalistes movement — ironically denounced the isolation of art: "Once upon a time, there was a Manichaean objective world: everyday objects on one side and works of art on the other," he said, arguing that to fully draw the lessons of Duchamp's ready-made, new artworks — the new "Objects-plus" — would henceforth belong to the field of information in an era marked by the growing use of informational machines processing and circulating information through digital technologies. In short, they would be informational objects.
It is also precisely thirty years since the end of history. In the summer of 1989, The National Interest published a short text by the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama titled 'The End of History?', in which he argued that liberal democracy might constitute 'the final point of humanity's ideological evolution'. A few weeks later, on 9 November at precisely 6.57pm, Günter Schabowski, the German Democratic Republic's Central Committee secretary responsible for media, declared on live television: ‘Private travel abroad may be authorised without the presentation of supporting documents, such as proof of reason for travel or family ties. Authorisations will be issued without delay. Travel, including permanent relocation, may take place at any border crossing with the Federal Republic of Germany.' When asked by a journalist when this would take effect, Schabowski, leafing through his notes, replied: 'As far as I know, immediately.' The Berlin Wall, erected in 1961, had just fallen.
It is said that Michelangelo set himself the task of freeing angels trapped within blocks of marble. Marble alone among stones possesses this fragile transparency. Similar to human skin in its translucency, marble sculpture has a visual depth that extends far beyond its surface. Since the classical period of Greek sculpture, sculptors have used marble to express sensuality in its purest form. Attributed to Praxiteles, the statue of Aphrodite of Knidos depicts the goddess standing naked, her right hand covering her genitals. This is an early example of full female nudity in monumental Greek statuary. The model is said to have been the sculptor's mistress, the famous courtesan Phryne, who bathed naked in the sea during the Eleusinian festivals. She holds a garment in her left hand, and ever since, marble sculptors have tirelessly freed those cascades of folds from the hard shell of stone that reveal far more than they conceal. Bernini's Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, sheltered in the Cornaro Chapel of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome, is characterised above all by these torrents of drapery, through which a trembling foot, a hand and a face stretching towards joy emerge with difficulty.
For this reason, Laurence Jenkell’s marble candies seem to me — at least for now — to represent the pinnacle of her art. Even more convincingly than plexiglass, the material that gave birth to them, or bronze, whose cocoa or honey patinas further enhance their sweetness, marble most powerfully overturns the stereotypes of the original model. This is done in the same fascinating way that the veil protecting the marble Veiled Virgin, sculpted by Giovanni Strazza, reveals every feature, even the inner ones. This unlimited surrender contrasts violently with the stone shell that appears to imprison her. By shifting from plexiglass to marble, Laurence Jenkell resolves the artistic paradox of interior and exterior — also known as "sphere eversion", the transformation that turns the inside of a sphere outward in three-dimensional space, allowing the surface to pass through itself.
In 1966, Warhol stated: 'If you want to know all about me, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me.' That's me. There's nothing behind it.' For a long time, we thought this was just a joke or a witty remark. However, Laurence Jenkell’s sculpture reveals the paradoxical depth of this idea when it is incarnated in stone. Indeed, there is nothing behind the surface provided that surface possesses the delicate transparency of marble; that infinitesimal gleam of light trapped within the material's skin; and those birefringent calcite crystals through which light propagates anisotropically. In this way, only marble allows the sculpted form to constantly renew itself according to the direction from which it is viewed. With Laurence Jenkell, life flows through these folds; life itself pulses within these veins.
Stéphane Corréard