The American artist Mark Jenkins, known for his human-sized statues, is one of the artists invited to “A summer in Le Havre” for the 2022 season. One of his works installed in the Saint-François district was quickly taken down. Explanations.
For the past two days, it has been a sculpture that has made the inhabitants of Le Havre (Seine-Maritime) speak in the street, but also on social networks. Several people demanded the removal of this work located above an arch of a building in the Saint-François district.
The work was removed this Wednesday, June 22, but it is not related to pressure from social networks. When contacted, the festival management explained that the final result did not correspond to the project commissioned several months ago. Indeed, the sculpture initially selected represented this male silhouette but had to be suspended differently.
This is a first draft below which would not have been fully consistent with this image as Jenkins’ characters have no faces and very rarely colored clothing.
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During the creation process, the artist had sent a new version of his work to the artistic direction, which did not validate it.
Mark Jenkins’ raw material is metal-reinforced tape. Using this material, the American artist creates human-sized statues with the help of his sidekick Sandra Fernandez. It is their own bodies that serve as molds to create these silhouettes: “We use adhesive tape instead of papier-mâché, for example. It’s faster, drier, less complicated and it’s not expensive » details the artist in his ephemeral studio at the Fort de Tourneville.
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Once dressed, the statues do not go unnoticed in the street. Mark Jenkins has already installed them in around thirty countries. He then films the reactions of passers-by. The artist wants to surprise and especially question.
We make people wonder not only about the sculptures but about the structure of the city and all the rules of the city. It’s a bit like graffiti in the sense that we modify the environment a little without any desire to degrade. It’s just to make the environment interesting.
In Quebec, this work by Jenkins represents a woman trapped between two walls.
In residence in Le Havre, the artist has created six characters. Among them: a skateboarder will jump from the top of the Volcano.
A real challenge for the technician who took part in the installation: ” there is a lot of wind resistance on the Volcano. The idea is to load the whole structure to counterbalance this offset character.”
There also the work caused a reaction, some people from Le Havre even warned the firefighters thinking that it was a real skateboarder. Over the days, the festival will broadcast clues to find the sculptures dispatched in the city center. Residents have four months to familiarize themselves with the artist’s works and understand his messages.
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