Stéphane Vigny

Stéphane Vigny "Jackpot

"Most of Stéphane Vigny's works belong to a disparate but coherent group called Les objets modifiés. It's a name that's neither harmless nor ironic, and makes it easy to understand that the artist uses everyday objects in mass production as raw materials. Always more attractive after transformation, the modified objects accept a decorative dimension with a touch of kitsch evocative of luxury, but they never become fragile, precious or irreplaceable objects; they keep their primary, intrinsic qualities, and remain perfectly identifiable even if they are presented in postures that don't belong to them. For the most part, they adopt the principle of reversibility, meaning that the modified object can return to its original function by being separated or even by retaining its addition.
We'll call them transformism objects, not in the scientific, evolutionary sense of the concept, but in the sense of the transformists, those individuals who play with the sexual acceptance of the term. It's as if these objects were being trained and subjected to bodily transformations to resemble starlets pampering themselves for a film festival. A pair of white sports shoes with velcro fastenings, for example, momentarily abandon their role as foot protectors and are hung on the wall like pots to hold two small flowering plantations, while a massive, virile riot barrier in galvanised metal, life-size, takes on the charming, elegant and light appearance of Louis XV-style furniture, and a 250 kg nozzle, a concrete road structure used to drain waste water, is transformed, thanks to two black metal supports, into a simple bench for walkers to rest on.
Stéphane Vigny observes the ingenuity of popular inventions which, for economic, pragmatic and above all decorative reasons, transform a used tyre into a planter, a barrel into a bar, a scallop shell into an ashtray or a set of corks into a fly screen.
At Piacé, in addition to his voluminous works, Stéphane Vigny has put together an astonishing retrospective. In the central space of the venue, he is presenting a group of smaller works that, in their relationship to the model, are closer to Schuars trophies and Tsantzas than to Majorette miniatures. No more clutter for collectors, just a chimney top to accommodate them. Jackpot!

Alain Berland