Between N. Hérisson and M. Duchamp, Lilian Bourgeat, 2011

Resin, galvanised metal/ production Piacé le Radieux

Even if sculptural gigantism stems from a centuries-old tradition that, since the beginnings of Pop Art, has been increasingly open to the representation of everyday objects, to the point of giving the impression that everything has been said through this particular category of sculpture, contemporary artists such as Lilian Bourgeat continue to question excess and to give it a dimension that challenges and destabilises. Indeed, while enlargement is commonplace in contemporary sculpture, Lilian Bourgeat uses the play on scale to fool the viewer.

By choosing to reproduce everyday objects, he wants to confront them with a seemingly familiar environment (rocking chairs, garden furniture, boots, etc.) in which they can only move with difficulty. This is artistic work in which the spectator becomes a participant. Here are some examples, Opening is a 2009 work made up of plastic cups larger than buckets into which visitors were invited to drink the opening cocktail (without the option of using real cups). With Breeze block (2011), the artist challenges the relationship of scale between his work in the shape of a gigantic breeze block and the surrounding architecture. With its alveoli that, because of their size, can evoke windows or doors, it seems to become itself a form of architecture, an urban structure in its own right.

Multiplying the play on references and trompe l'œil, Lilian Bourgeat's enlarged bottle-holder is a real eye-catcher. Between N.Hérisson and M.Duchamp a mise en abîme of the surrealist artist's work. An obvious and humorous reminder of the Hedgehog Bourgeat's 1914 sculpture (named for its spiky shape), set in a field of grazing cows in Piacé, plays with the public's expectations and the relationship between the ready-made, the manufactured object and the work machined to the artist's specifications. Lilian Bourgeat's work is based on the ambiguous relationship between his works and the viewer: while they challenge the viewer's relationship with the world, they can only 'exist', or at least take on their full meaning, with someone standing next to them to give them scale. Their extraordinary size only becomes apparent to the viewer through comparison with his or her own body.

Text by Roma Lambert