Michel François

 

Michel François (b. 1956 in Belgium, where he lives and works) defines himself as a sculptor. The questions of production, value, growth and circulation runs through his work, where they are confronted to inertia, devaluation, decomposition, loss and dissemination. He manipulates matter in his exploration of cause and effect and of how simple gestures can affect the status of the object. His sculptural works invite the viewer to consider what proportion chance and control have in their formation. François creates a form of continuity between what is and what is not (yet) art: he proposes a definition of art as a moment, with gestures giving the impetus and forms the result.

 

François creates spaces of reflection or self-awareness, by showing normal human events as well as recognizable processes and objects. And yet, at the same time, he reverses things, he turns them inside out. Some inversions are formal, such as convex and concave, empty and full, light and dark. But there are also inversions that speak more to social structures such as freedom and imprisonment, riches and poverty, work and leisure, survival and play. The standard measure of all his works is based on essential questions about the human being: how s/he experiences or senses the world, and how these sensations relate to his/her way of thinking and perceiving.