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This new project is part of a series of recent works where the text is incorporated as a central problem in the image. Similar in constructive system as Still life / Style leaf in the use of images of wrinkled pages, in this case I chose the book Exercices de Style (Exercises in Style) by the french writer Raymond Queneau. In the book, Quenau tells a brief story of an everyday life situation that happens in a bus, and then, he re-writes it ninety-nine times, in ninety-nine different ways, each in a radically different style, as a sonnet, an opera, in slang, and with many more permutations.

I have conceived three different series, made with different media, which are wool felt, paper –both hand-cut– and embroidery. Each one of the pieces reproduces a different version of Exercices de Style: five stories in felt, eight stories in paper and six stories in hand-made embroidery.

Just as Queneau uses lenguaje in many different ways in his stories, in my “exercises” I present different approaches to the images of wrinkled pages of the book; each material and technical variation offers a new sense and a new way to understand that “the form is content”.


Captions of the pieces

 

Page 24
Exercices de Style. Le côté subjetive / Exercises in Style. The Subjective Side
Hand-made embroidery, 47 cm (18”) diameter
2015

Pages 25 and 26
Exercices de Style. Autre subjectivité / Exercises in Style. Another Subjectivity 
Two pieces of hand-made embroidery, 47 cm (18”) diameter each
2015

Page 27
Exercices de Style. Récit / Exercises in Style. Narrative
Hand-made embroidery, 47 cm (18”) diameter
2015

Page 28
Exercices de Style. Composition de mots / Exercises in Style. Word-Building
Hand-made embroidery, 47 cm (18”) diameter
2015

Page 29
Exercices de Style. Négativités / Exercises in Style. Negativities
Hand-made embroidery, 47 cm (18”) diameter
2015

Pages 30 and 31
Exercices de Style. Animisme / Exercises in Style. Animism
Two pieces of hand-made embroidery, 47 cm (18”) diameter each
2015

exhibited in

Exercices de Style / Exercises in Style

14 February - 26 April 2015

curator

Solo show at the Frost Art Museum, Miami.


related videos

the making of Exercices de Style / Exercises in Style

the making of Exercices de Style / Exercises in Style.
Solo show at the Frost Art Museum, Miami.

duration 1:49


  1. © 2023 monica bengoa

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