PRINCESSE AU CARROSSE

However, Sandrine Peyroux’s career is the example of an artistic gesture fed by the choice of difficulty. Well protected behind the shield of « artistic judgments », a few art critics or experts have cautiously ventured in the squats. Being the only ones able to attribute the label of « contemporary art », they allow themselves despising attitudes concerning the works of arts. While praising the festive and militant aspects of these places they relegate their content to unimportant and unorganized entertainment. The experts are confronted to an accumulation of voluntarily heterogeneous works of art. Short-sighted they spare themselves the effort to think about the point of view brought about by the precariousness and the feeling of urgency that weighs on these places. Without the visual comfort of a white cubic space and the social comfort brought by the label « gallery », the eye looses its acuity. Lets however assert : the percentage of finished works of art and powerful artistic gestures is at least as important in the production of squats than in « labeled » expositions. The galleries take the risk of confronting works of unequal quality or unfinished works at the risk of loosing the best of it. In a squat, insignificance, fairly present in galleries does not forgive.

The political choice of refusing a category of artists transforms the spectator’s position into that of a gold digger. The artist waits for the sharpness and curiosity of a spectator able to situate the work in its conditions of creation and circulation without being satisfied with a joyful atmosphere. If one accepts to discover this non-labeled production one can find the gold nuggets. Sandrine Peyroux who is member of a team that has recently transformed an old garage Capitaine-Marchal Street into « Carrosse » with half a dozen other artists is an example. This young artist has been through the « art deco » Beaux-Arts in Toulouse, and has lived a number of adventures in Paris squats and more precisely at Pôle Pi and at COMAC. She is an active member of the Interface association determined in finding solutions for the forced exile of Parisian artists evicted from squats. Her experiences have shown her that an open artistic space does not have to be justified by a social label. Little by little it imposes itself in a neighborhood through shared experiences and through the power of artistic creations. Her paintings contradict the prejudices on squats and with these false ideas one has in mind. One can even be surprised at first of her presence in such an environment. Her work is sober and contrasts with the frenetic colors often shown in squats. It is as if in the middle of the abundance of artwork, more colors, more forms and material were needed to catch the eye of the visitor. Instead of assaulting, her work imposes itself by giving the eye a place to rest. Gifted for volume she paints but also works on installations. Her work functions in series of two or three. However, she doesn’t play on accumulation, on the contrary, her main tool is reserve. To let her painting breath, she reduces means without refraining from different technique : Collage, superimposition....Her constructions are very precise but always off focus, not framed, and under tension as if she was building a story board where the main part of the story is somewhere else. Serenity or minimalism would not describe correctly her work, which is always marked by the human touch that appears like a ghost, like an often-threatened shadow. There is mix of reserved roughness -as shows the beautiful painting in homage to Edwardo, a historical figure of Parisian squats whom passed away two years ago. A peaceful but determined radicalism.

Le Carrosse, 16, rue du Capitaine-Marchal 75020 Paris. Tel. : +33 (0) 1 40 31 85 15