At the origin of the idea of the partnership between FRAC and SNCF Gares & Connexions by end 2011, giving birth to this event celebrating 30 years of FRAC in 30 stations in 2013, entreprisecontemporaine® is also at the origin of the choice, in close collaboration with FRACs, of some fifteen works shown at stations, with highlights such as Alain Bublex in Montpellier (production with Vinci Construction France) and Franck Scurti in Toulouse (mediation with Laboratoires Pierre Fabre).
Here is one of them :
Laurent Perbos, souches, arbre qui pleure, 2007, Marseille Saint Charles station, Summer 2013
© Laurent Perbos, adagp and FRAC PACA
© photo entreprisecontemporaine 2013
First look
It is from several kilometers of agglomerated sprinklers that the artist realizes this work on a human scale, representing stumps and trunks of trees placed on the ground. At the extremity of these pipes flows, drop by drop, a clear water, like the sap irrigating the bark.
Second look
Laurent Perbos transports travelers here in an unexpected setting, vision of a forest “tinkered” in the middle of the effervescence of the station. Usual objects of our daily life, the pipes of watering are metamorphosed, endowing a new symbolic: if they are “wounded”, the trees “weep” like human beings.
Look at history
When Monet painted the weeping willows series, around 1916-1919, many saw it as a kind of self-portrait: it is true that the painter, in the midst of war, faced dramas and that Giverny gardens became over the years intimately connected to his life. The tree itself could embody his torments and resistance against all odds.
Look at our society
Through this representation of nature and its fragility, Laurent Perbos opens our eyes to environmental problems, and in particular to the dangers of deforestation. Through a simple and evocative “vocabulary”, the artist realizes, with a symbol of our modernity, plastic material, a tribute to the king of the vegetal world, so vital to our planet.
Laurent Perbos
Born in 1971, lives and works in Marseille. “People’s culture, objects, materials, stories that are familiar to us are at the root of my work. I use a vocabulary of forms shared by the public, which facilitates access to the work “.