03 July 2018

Céramique et métaux

Another attraction in La Borne is a place called the Centre céramique contemporaine. It's partly museum and partly museum shop. You can browse around in the shop for free. You pay a modest entry fee to have a look around in the museum section. My impression was that everything on display was for sale. It looked like this.


One of the featured artists when Sue and I were in La Borne at the beginning of June was a sculptor who works with both metal and ceramics. His name is Jean-Raymond Meunier and here's a link to a web site about him and his work. He's the artist who did the blue dogs I posted a photo of a couple of days ago. He says on his site that he has been influenced by cartoonists like Claire Brétecher.


In the photo above, you can see how his works are displayed at the Centre. Below are close-up shots of two pieces that were featured in the exhibit. You can see them "in context" in the photo above. The first one is called « À la ville »


The second piece, of which my close-up shot shows only a detail, is also visible in the second photo above. It's called « La brochette ». I don't understand exactly why it's called that.


I guess the figures are sort of arranged to resemble skewered meat or vegetables. To me, they look like they are waiting for a Paris metro train to pull into the station. What do you think?

16 comments:

  1. As you suggested, par métonymie, a brochette can mean a small group of people.

    Suppose police arrest several would-be terrorists, you could say, ironically, Voilà une belle brochette!

    I like À la ville, but the rest not so much.

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    1. I think I vaguely knew that figurative use of brochette. Do you think it's police jargon or argot? One dictionary translates the term as "string" in English. Another dictionary says a synonym of brochette in French might be assortiment.

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    2. I don’t think it is police jargon or slang. In most cases, brochette, with that meaning, is used humourously or pejoratively.

      Collins gives bevy as translation for brochette in the meaning we’re talking about. To me, string seems to be far-fetched.

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    3. Bevy has connotations that limit its usefulness, I think. There's something that seems old-fashioned about it, or early 20th century Hollywood, as in phrases like "a bevy of bathing beauties." I agree about string. Usually things in metaphorical strings happen over time, in sequence — a string of victories, or defeats, or accidents, meaning a series. Isn't the metaphorical brochette more like an alignement, in spatial rather than temporal terms? This is getting fairly esoteric, I think.

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    4. Assortiment gives a good idea of brochette.

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  2. Someone else liked “À la ville” too.... it has a coveted ‘red sticker’ to indicate that it was sold!
    I like all of these, they are fun!! If we had any wall space, I would love that here.... if I could afford it!!
    I also like his ‘sad dogs’...
    Thanks for posting these.

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  3. The 'folk' look very sad to me and their rackity tennement.

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    1. I agree. The artist says he creates his characters "avec humour, avec exagération, mais surtout avec simplicité, avec tendresse, avec beaucoup d'amour.

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  4. Oh I love the little people, wilting in the summer heat, waiting for the ice cream man to arrive :)

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    1. You mean the ones I thought were waiting for the subway?

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  5. A la Ville seems pessimistic to me- all that rust and stooped people remind me of old age and some of the aches and pains I feel nowadays. It is nice to look at, but I don't see the humor. The gallery is nice for sure.

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    1. I'm not sure I really see humor in Meunier's work. But I do think of all the people I see at SuperU or Intermarché, our local supermarkets, and I think a lot of them could be models for the creator of these sculptures.

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    2. I just read a little about Meunier outlook on his creations and I'm starting to like these little people a lot. At first I just noticed their odd bent over heads, but now I see their humanity (and ours, too).

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  6. I like the exhibition space. It's a nice design. ;-)

    The brochette reminds me of the iconic Rockefeller center picture from the 30s of the crew having lunch on an I-beam:

    https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/today-in-history-throwback-thursday-september-29/

    The blue dogs look better from the side imo.

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    1. Interesting photo from 1932. There is that quality in some of Meunier's sculptures, I think.

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