Hugo Servanin: Environnement Foule 6

8 May-6 Jun 2021

Overview

The work of Hugo Servanin revolves around the creation of sculptures that the artist calls Géants [Giants]: hybrid beings that are first moulded on human bodies and then assembled with an array of synthetic materials. Referencing the aesthetics of classical sculpture – busts or naked bodies displayed on plinths – Servanin’s Géants express the visceral, fragile and ephemeral nature of human bodies. These characteristics are conveyed through the minute study of the bodies’ armatures and an empirical approach of materials. Once his sculptures are shaped, Servanin composes immersive installations in which, using a wide range of advanced technologies and artificial intelligence, he recreates the conditions of organic life. Acting like a scientist in his laboratory, Servanin is constantly inventing new methods to animate his sculptures; for instance, by using humidification/evaporation procedures which progressively modify their shape and surface colour, heat monitoring incubators that crackle their epidermis, ventilators that make them breathe, or complex mechanical systems distributing their body fluids. By bridging traditions of ‘good form’ with cutting-edge technologies, Servanin composes alternative environments through which he critically analyses the success and failure of the cornucopian civilization we live in.