FABRICE HYBER, A WORK IN PERPETUAL INVENTION

Four years ago,  Fabrice Hyber collaborated with the researchers from M.I.T. to design Matière à penser, an exhibition for the inauguration of Le Laboratoire in Paris.  Last year, Hyber´s Pasteur’ Spirit was the first exhibition of a contemporary artist at the world center of biomedical research.  The artist continues today his analysis of the relationship between art and science and returns to the source of what drives these two domains:  creation and "inventions".

In the art world as in the scientific world, nothing is final.  Any established notion is immediately absorbed, contradicted, expanded or developed.  Fabrice Hyber, who was enrolled in science preparatory classes before entering the Beaux-Arts, defines nature as "a functioning". Similarly he sees his art as part of a continual questioning of acquired knowledge, a perpetual topological reasoning that integrates his environment resulting in new recipes and new behaviors by the principles of deformation and transformation.

"The artist himself must be the origin, the source and justification of a new state of things." In his first solo exhibition entitled Mutation, we can already see that Hyber’s works are thought out prior to their creation, then modeled on natural behaviors such as slippage, displacement, transfer and hybridization.  A scientist establishes his theory after cross-checking different observations and analysis of the same phenomenon.  The opposite is true in Hyber´s artworks, where the previously unknown result comes from a development based on the indefinite.  As there is always something to invent, each work is a "freeze frame" of a free, ongoing reflection which neither language, form nor composition is pre-defined.

The new paintings exhibited at the gallery from September 9 to October 27 were all made in 2011. Fabrice Hyber goes beyond the mere creation of inventions in these works to let us see where the inventions come from and how they are born.  Often, they come from errors in which these same transformation processes are applied.  For instance, Impossible is a painting based on a cut orange.  The orange slices are mistakenly drawn identically, from top to bottom, forcing the artist to imagine a solution for the composition around it.

Emmêlé was the first work created for this group.  It is the starting point, or rather the common thread of this exhibition with Hyber pushing the limits of the pencil, changing color only after it has been used up.  Alternating pastel, charcoal and graphite pencil, the artist has created a large, abstract composition, a complex multicolored entanglement.  This composition is based on an immediacy and continuity of movement that creates a "state of non-vigilance," a state conducive to free and uncontrolled new ideas.

Topologie infectée is another strong example of this process and summarizes the theories that are dear to the artist in a visual, minimal composition:  a black and white grid where vertical and horizontal lines shift suddenly, leaving the artist´s mind to wander and lose himself while forgetting the initial methodology.

Alongside these two "theoretical" paintings are other large, abstract compositions at the entrance of the exhibition.  They give visitors the keys to understanding the creative thinking that gave birth to all of these inventions.  Nuancier is a patchwork of colored squares methodically composed with all the colors used in the collection.  Le confort moderne, another expression dear to the artist to define his visual constructions, is a drawing of multiple cubes placed side by side.  Each cube refers to an individual vision with its own perspectives and vanishing points; yet the juxtaposition leads to a lively, global construction, without formalism, created simply by shifts in thought.

After these introductory works, Hyber invites us to discover his inventions evoking the philosopher Gilles Deleuze, who the artist greatly admires. These paintings expose an understanding of consistencies derived from an unconscious production or linked to desire, beyond all dogmatism.

Exception represents an "invention drawing", a bar code or strings of a harp made of vertical stems with clovers.  The artist first drew a compost soil with decaying elements at the bottom of the painting where plants sprout forth; black, leafy stems erroneously assembled by 3 instead of 2.  The leaves become clovers, whose stems also appear from seeds.  As in nature, the artist introduces some four-leaf clovers, showing that random chance is also an element of these inventions.

The inventions we see here in this collection demonstrate the mental ecology that Fabrice Hyber aspires to.  It pushes him to use both physical and intellectual material and to contemplate some very diverse issues.  The artist engages in thought association games that cross one idea with another.  We move from biology (Tomate recomposée) and genetics (Tricéphale, with "monstrosities" from anatomical mutations, or Triple Hélice that depicts a spiral staircase shooting from the complex intersections of two geometric structures of DNA) to new attitudes coming from recent technological changes (the Geek chair, for avid video game players) or economics (Taba which lets us imagine new types of vehicles that would generate their own power).  L’Homme de Bessines recomposé  brings back the mutant man created by the artist twenty years ago, a  symbol of cross-communication, where organic chemistry joins both fluid mechanics and parapsychology.  

The hanging of the small paintings in the "concentrated inventions" collection on the first floor of the gallery is itself an invention.  Specifically conceived by Fabrice Hyber as a storyboard, it recalls his famous Peintures homéopathiques in which he assembles drawings, writings and objects to synthesize his thoughts and research on a topic.  First done at the Pasteur´ Spirit exhibition and then again at FIAC 2010, the artist presents the paintings edge to edge in a tight arrangement that covers the walls.  Sometimes gaps are drawn to emphasize connections and associations of ideas that can move from one painting to another, from one invention to another.  It offers us a mental organization in perpetual mutation just by an expansion of thought.

All new paintings exhibited here are done in a lively and colorful palette, "because the colors make it readable." They use mixed media combining drawing, collage and painting.  The Epoxy resin, an invention created exclusively for the artist, is applied as a final coat that reveals the different layers of the painting by giving transparency and shine.
These aesthetic effects reinforce the positive, Dionysian impact of these works.  They open up new perspectives and new behaviors, towards a future of humanity where the artist demonstrates a power of invention as dynamic as the scientist.

Upcoming Exhibition:

A.R. Penck - Entre feu et glace (catalogue)

4 novembre 2011 - 7 janvier 2012