Setting up an exhibition can be many things. At times it’s a creative process, an enjoyable and exciting experience as ideas and negotiations take place at rapid speed. At others it can be stressful, exhausting and nerve wracking. There is however, one constant when it comes to setting up an exhibition, the entire process revolves around food.
On slow days, meal times are strictly adhered to; an easy distraction. In contrast, on the busy and productive days, a packet of paprika nuts or an entire bar of Milka has to suffice as works are hung and decisions are finally made.
I’d been in Bordeaux for two days having arrived from Brussels to set up my exhibition Chouette! at the gallery, Pierre Poumet. Progress had been good and so Pierre and I decided to take a break and head into the centre of Bordeaux to see some exhibitions and get some lunch. This is when we discovered Le Boulanger de l’Hôtel de Ville and this is where we discovered ‘La Parisienne’.
Amazingly light, La Parisienne is a perfect combination of crumble, crushed pistachio nuts and dried apricots combined with a green tinted pistachio sponge. Placed underneath the sponge is a layer of marzipan and underneath the marzipan, flaky buttery pastry.
The first step of the set up had been to create a new series of Painting Sculptures.
Using my own discarded canvases, works are folded, crumpled and wrestled into their new forms. Working in direct relation to the space of the gallery, their shapes and attitudes are informed by the architecture. Like the canvases themselves, the features of the architecture undergo a change through the process of the sculptures’ realisation. The edges of a corner are heightened through the particular draping of a canvas, the floor is made more concrete as it pushes up the fragile folded form that it now supports.
During the install I was also learning valuable lessons about the etiquette of French boulangeries. Boasting of an original 18th Century oven (still in daily use) and fronted by a gruff lady (who refused to be charmed by my persistent attempts to smile my way into her affections) Au Pétrin Moissagais fueled the next few days work on Chouette!. There I learnt for example, that it is perfectly acceptable to take your own choice of bread from the vast displays on show. But, that once chosen there is no going back on your choice, whatsoever. It was also there that I was promptly stopped by my stern faced friend from helping myself to one of the goat’s cheese and courgette quiches, which in my defense were placed provocatively on display in the centre of the boulangerie.
As well as the Painting Sculptures I had decided to display works taken from two other series; Fleck Paintings and a selected number of paintings from The Postcard Series. Exhibited together for the first time, the works in Chouette! would form a continuation of my wish to critically interrogate what can be called and understood to be Painting.
Almost identical to each other The Fleck Paintings are based upon a decorative painting effect that I found covering the walls of a French Language school in Brussels. They are highly textured through the use of chipped fragments of paint that have been removed from discarded pieces of found woodwork. In The Postcard Series, postcards are used as a starting point and paint is employed to edit and alter the original image.
At least one day had passed without some sort of patisserie being eaten and on my daily walk into the gallery I had noticed a nice looking shop that sold a variety of different cakes. Next up to try was ‘Le Conversation’.
This was a sort of trumped up Bakewell tart, and after explaining to Pierre what a Bakewell tart was, I went on to describe how Le Conversation was pretty much the same except that this tart had a lid, a lid complete with a thin layer of meringue.
Although slightly disappointing (in comparison to La Parisienne) Le Conversation came at a crucial point in the set up of the exhibition. We had spent several days adding more and more works as we continued to try out new methods in which to hang the Fleck Paintings and Postcard Series in relation to the Painting Sculptures. It’s important for me to be able to build up the composition of an exhibition piece by piece, and we had reached the stage where the placement of every additional work had the potential to unbalance the tension created by the others. Equally, adding works could make what had previously been ‘not quite right’, somehow vibrate.
Trying to find this point of tension, the point at which the collective energy of the works cause a friction to the viewer is the most enjoyable and agonized over part of any exhibition set up. It’s this tension that makes you say something like ‘That works’ and it’s a point at which a tangible relationship between each of the works and the gallery can be felt.
You’ll be pleased to know that my diet in Bordeaux was not entirely cake based glamour; other culinary highlights included fish fingers in a half burnt tortilla wrap* and ‘Le Hash Brown’ which, according to the English Pub we visited, is a typical English burger…
The final work to be hung was one last Fleck Painting, and this was placed directly next to another taken from the same series. I was happy with the feeling of completeness that we had been able to achieve and I felt that each work was functioning on two levels, individually and collectively.
I hoped viewers would be prompted to move around the gallery back and forth, taking moments to look closely at the details of the each work but also to step back again and take in the whole.
The opening went well and the next day I left Bordeaux returning to Brussels smuggling two La Parisiennes in my hand luggage. You might not believe me but honestly, they weren’t both for me.
Edward Liddle is an artist and exhibitions manager currently based in Brussels. He is available for exhibitions, written work and food tasting.
*Recipe available on request.
‘Chouette!’ is at Pierre Poumet, Bordeaux until 19 March
