Work from the Collection

Tennis skirt batten board

Artist: Helen Marten

Date of creation: 2011

Domain: Sculpture

Medium: Assemblage

Materials: Solidified ash, Nuts, Wood, Pinewood nails, Vinyl, Vectorized drawing on cut vinyl, Stress ball key ring, Powder-coated chains

Collection: Lafayette Anticipations - Fonds de dotation Famille Moulin

Date of acquisition: 2013

Helen Marten, Tennis skirt batten board, Sculpture, 2011, Collection Fonds de dotation Famille Moulin © FDFM

Tennis skirt batten board is a vectorized drawing printed in large format: the piece measures almost two by three metres. Helen Marten depicted a reclining figure whose head is resting on a pillow. Only her head and legs are visible; the rest of the body is hidden under a space created by the assembly of three wooden beams, which suggests a door with nails driven into its frame. Stress toy keyrings are hung on some of them. The figure’s pose recalls a motif that is particularly common in Western painting: the reclining female nude presented to the public’s gaze. Here, Helen Marten reverses the acquired image and brings mystery into play. Is the character a man or a woman? Are they clothed or naked? What about the tennis skirt evoked by the title of the work? The playful aspect of Helen Marten’s artistic approach is on show here. She modifies an old model thanks to the possibilities offered by digital technology, then juxtaposes prefabricated objects and an assembly of pieces of wood with the printed design. This encounter between materials evokes the “collision of surfaces” that the artist experiments with in her work.

Text written by Audrey Pellerin as part of the partnership between the École du Louvre and Lafayette Anticipations – Fonds de dotation Famille Moulin.

Exhibition

No borders in a wok that can’t be crossed
CCS Bard Hessel Museum, New-York (États-Unis)
from 22 Jun to 22 Sep 2013

À propos de l'artiste

Helen Marten

Born in 1985 in Macclesfield, Royaume-Uni

C’est avec humour qu’Helen Marten s’attache à modifier nos perceptions du monde. Par son travail, elle manipule les images acceptées par la société pour les modifier et interroger leur place, leur véracité et leur poids. Son univers s’inscrit dans les possibilités offertes par l’avènement du numérique, qui lui permettent d’assembler des images diverses et d’en modifier profondément les caractéristiques internes sans pour autant altérer leur apparence. Ses œuvres sont ainsi autant de « collages » de grande taille où les objets trouvés se mêlent sans hiérarchie à des créations de sa main.

Née en 1985 à Macclesfield (Royaume-Uni), Helen Marten est plasticienne, vidéaste et écrivaine. Son travail a été récompensé par le prix Lafayette en 2011, le prix LUMA en 2012, ainsi que par le Hepworth Prize et le Turner Prize en 2016. Elle vit et travaille à Londres.