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Born in 1978, Madrid, Spain 2004 Geneva University of Art and Design, Switzerland 2007 Kyoto University of Art and Design, Japan A graduate of the Geneva University of Art and Design, Jean-Gabriel Cruz combines traditional materials with a personal view of a contemporary world that has become extremely complex, heavily urbanised and fed by strong multicultural influences.Through a varied range of works, from sculpture to installation, he often reinterprets ancient techniques such as ceramics to offer a resolutely contemporary message based on pop culture, mangas and video games. With the series of objects presented at this exhibition – unlikely formal combinations of items of sports equipment, pieces of medieval armour and insect carapaces - Jean-Gabriel Cruz highlights the violence in our contemporary society that is cunningly maintained (sport is a perfect example of this), often without our knowing. These objects are the accusing leftovers of our behaviour, practices and ways of seeing our relationships with others. Our eyes see these pieces as almost timeless archaeological reminders. Jean-Gabriel Cruz occasionally sets them out with an entomological precision. All human presence is strategically spirited away, and yet there is an obvious reference to the « Though ceramics expresses both fragility through the material and strength through the form, these pieces, which are intended to be worn on the body represent an illusory security that ends up by imprisoning the wearer. Just as the animal in Kafka’s “Burrow” ends up as the prisoner of the installations intended to protect him from his enemies, this aesthetic and therefore disabling armour end up denying their own raison d’être by putting an end to their wearer’s freedom and, in the end, his reason for living. » Yves Peltier |
Jean-Gabriel Cruz
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