David Douard, Melody (SG), 2022, in Sculpture Garden 2022, exhibition view, Geneva Bienniale, Geneva, Switzerland (2022). Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris. Photo: Julien Gremaud.
The Geneva Bienniale Sculpture Garden 2022 presents Melody (SG) (2022), a new work by the artist David Douard.
Drawing inspiration from street furniture and collective spaces such as bus shelters in which people gather for a short while, David Douard has created a hybrid structure which eschews functionality.
Whereas the glass and metal structure points to a certain rigidity, or even to the authority that governs public space, the images and texts found on Internet that are screen printed generate a sense of intimacy and introspection which unsettles the system. The environment appears to be contaminated by fantasies and digital technologies. The thistle motif, recurrent in the artist’s work and embodying opposites —both flower and weed, both decorative and injurious— recalls above all the force of resilience of nature but also that of alternative communities. At night the work is lit like a night light, heart-warming for nocturnal strollers.
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