Étienne Martin was celebrated as the first ‘soft sculptor’. I’m guessing this came from his use of fabrics rather than his personality, although from the pictures I’ve seen of him he seemed like a gentle man.
Across two dimly lit rooms, the Centre Pompidou in Paris is showing a collection of his work based around a recent donation to the gallery. There wasn’t a cuddly toy in sight, ‘soft’ apparently refers to the bits of old salvaged rope and sack he used, as in his most famous piece Manteau (coat), pictured. Other found materials include a dress-netting, rusty bent metal rods and brightly coloured military decorations.
His works remind me of a shipwreck washed up at shore (he also looked quite Captain Pugwash). However, in interviews Étienne Martin talked about his sculptures as a shelter, like a hut or a cave. He named his most famous exhibition Demeures (dwellings) and had himself photographed wearing the Manteau sculpture as a shell.
The loss of his childhood home has been mentioned as a key influence on his work. Looking at this sculpture with that in mind reminded me of the endless number of dens I used to make with my sister as a kid. Then, there was nothing better in life than stealing all the sleeping bags and clean sheets we could find, hanging them over the clothes dryer and refusing entry to anyone without the secret password.
Red, green and blue are colours often repeated in Étienne Martin’s work as they were key to his memories/dreams of his family house. Some of his works also contain more obvious childhood references such as alphabet building blocks, which are at the same time nostalgic and creepy. Another theme in his work is force of nature. Driftwood and fallen trees are either smoothly sculptured or exploited for their twists and tangles, as with his sculpture Ecce Homo from 1993. Essentially a lump of tree trunk with a heavy chain attached, the imagination easily transforms it into a painfully hunched slave or prisoner. While this is going on you notice that the ends of the wood mimic haunches of meat hanging in a butcher’s window. Other wooden sculptures in the collection resemble totem poles from an ancient tribe, another lost world of his imagination. Describing Étienne Martin’s sculptures is difficult, but one word I definitely wouldn’t use is ‘soft’.
"The Imaginary Historian"
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