TO A GARDEN

À un jardin

Oui nécessaire clôture
Pour que le lieu devienne lien
Et le temps attente.

Que le sentier mène à l’amante,
Que tout désir aille à son terme,
Que chaque fleur porte visage et nom,
Que chaque fruit préserve faim et soif,
Que vent et pluie soir et aube
Renouvellent leurs offrandes sur l’herbe,
Que l’infini, lui, fasse halte
Sur la cime des pins.

Oui nécessaire clôture
Pour que le lieu soit appel,
Et l’instant répons sans fin.

—— François Cheng, La vraie gloire est ici

The garden is an artificial creation, aiming to replicate a natural state of a living and meeting place. It’s a living space composed of a system of plants and animals, sometimes a pond with an island, accompanied by rocks, and a meeting place accessed by humans to find each other, walk, play, exchange, and embrace.

Peihang BENOIT and Fabrice LANGLADE contribute works included in the exhibition, consisting of rocks and chimeras, colors, lights, and primarily desires. In Fabrice’s work, the quest for simplicity in form and materials is also present, akin to his practice of Judo, representing a floating essence, a contemplation of the moving body.

Peihang combines her native culture of Taiwan and her Western experience, blending nature and yearning, innate and acquired. She draws inspiration from elements of classical masterpieces and takes us on a journey through colors that form interstitial spaces, akin to the secret corners of the garden. The light pierces through clouds and branches, forming shadows where lovers hide.

The mutual encounters of the two artists in the workshops have sparked elusive waves, from art to philosophy, from identity to society. The exhibition of their artistic creations is an invitation to all who come to enter their garden, to see and stroll, to think and contemplate.

ARTIST｜Peihang BENOIT

Peihang Benoit explores time, space, memory and identity in her practice. 

Inspired by her own migratory experience, she starts with collages of images gleaned both from historical materials and contemporary everyday media. Benoit weaves the hidden relations between visual documents of the human experience and reflects the ways of seeing in the digital era, mostly through painting; also ceramic, photography and other project based approaches. 

Born in Taipei, 1984, moved to the U.S. with her academic parents at a very young age and then moved back to Taipei, then in London, and Paris. Benoit has a bilingual upbringing and an experience of changing countries multiple times that reflects a general human condition especially in contemporary time. She has also been influenced by her feminist mother, seen as a modern woman in the society in her own time. These experiences has provoked her interest into such subjects in her practice. 

Benoit holds both BA and MFA degree in Fine Art at National Taiwan Normal University, and received another MA in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts, London. She has gained the prestigious Chi-Mei awards from Chi-Mei Museum, The Chu Teh-Chun Award, Ashurst Emerging Artist Prize (UK) and has been a recent finalist of Hopper Prize(US).  Her works have been exhibited in the Saatchi Gallery, Macau Art Museum, Museum of Tokyo University of the Arts, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Pier 2 Art Center, Chi-Mei Museum, AKI Gallery, and Yiri Arts; in Taiwan, U.K., China, Japan, South Korea, Germany and other countries.

Benoit currently lives and works in Paris. 

ARTIST｜Fabrice LANGALDE

Fabrice Langlade was born in Reims (Champagne) in 1964.

Raised in Paris, the spectacle of the Paris-Moscow exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou in 1979 strongly inspired him to become an artist. He did not attend any academy, instead, at a very young age, learned from artists he encountered during his travels between Paris, Rio de Janeiro, New York, or Tokyo. He weaves a thread that connects the past and the future to the present, as well as the East to the West. He works almost exclusively in sculpture. Some of his works, like “UNPONTENPORCELAINEENMONGOLIE” or “MONSIEUR” are installed in nature (the Orkhon Valley in Mongolia, the forest of Allain in Lorraine) and can take on a monumental character. Others could be collected in a “cabinet of curiosities” style (Museum “de la chasse et de la Nature” in Paris). For several years, he has developed research around concept such as “White Studies”and “Floating matters”. This work is mainly composed by a corpus of Debussyian bas-reliefs (Floating Garden, Wild Orchids), post-Hellenic pedestals (Dionysos, Meta-Landscape), and a chimeric-forest ensemble (UNE ÎLE, MONSIEUR, Chimères).

His works have been exhibited in various galleries in France and elsewhere, in some institutional contexts as well as major international fairs, Art Basel, Expo Chicago, Art Basel Miami, etc. He is represented in a few public collections such as those of Le Plateau Frac ile de France, the Kyoto Costume Institute, or the Musée de la chasse et de la Nature.

Overview of the exhibition