Baptiste Laurent - "A l'âge de trente ans", XXXL, posca on paper, 2014

"At the age of thirty", XXXL, Posca on paper, spray, (260x150cm), 2014 Signed on the reverse. Sold unframed and shipped rolled. @baptiste___laurent Ibere Nation/ 2014 First obsession: filling the surface mechanically and coldly with a basic work criterion. With the most elementary graphic element, a stroke with a marker, from left to right, from top to bottom, until the lines cover the surface. The purpose is to fill everything, and the criterion is to do it in the least rigid way to reach a complete surface. The process is carried out with the greatest application, starting from an intuitive line, drawn freehand. No matter how careful it is… it leaves room for failure… Repeating until the frame is filled, and assuming errors, allows me to enter a mental state that is particularly empty, but concentrated, or in a state of true scratch. Second obsession after a long and hard winter, between physical hibernation and intellectual boredom, what better for me than reading the speeches of Zarathustra down his mountain? Write them! The succession of letters and words without spaces turns out to be the most elementary graphic way to tune in with my first obsession. An odd way to read Nietzsche by writing it. Zarathustra’s speeches deserve to be read again and again as a parable told by the prophet. Thus Spoke Zarathustra is also a parody of religious texts. Animal metaphors and Zarathustra’s solemn speech do not seem easy to understand on first reading. But what is clear is that Nietzsche tries to present to the world a new ethic. In the face of a world in crisis or asleep where God has died, he proposes to man a way out of the anesthetized state, the opportunity to overcome that void by becoming a superman. For me it turned out to be a very interesting exercise, both in the form that serves as a vehicle and in the content of the message. Emerged from an empty moment, in a long winter, of a Spanish crisis, I found it tempting to title this series Iber Nation. Artist bio/ Baptiste Laurent (1980, Nantes) is a visual artist who lives and works in Madrid and Paris. He has exhibited at various artistic and cultural institutions, including the Institut français de Madrid, Le Palais de Tokyo, Galeria La Caja, Esquina Nua, Espacio Seara, Gazzambo Gallery, Alliance française, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Galeria FL. His traditional medium is painting, but he also works in sculpture and develops projects with a strong literary, social and anthropological component. In his latest publications and exhibitions, "Conversaciones y puñetazos", "Mauvaises Tournures", "Bajo el Mismo Mar" and "Exit", he has repeatedly experimented with collaborative creative work with other visual artists and literary authors. As an anti-academic and eclectical artist, he likes to syncretise pictorial styles, oscillating between neo-figurative narrative, graphic painting and expressionist abstraction. Founder of the 'Latolier' shared studio in Madrid's Usera district, he leads a dynamic community of Spanish and international visual artists

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