Dewar & Gicquel
British / French, 1976- / 1975-
Mammoth and Poodle, 2010
Wool tapestry
354 1/4 x 177 1/4"
Collection of Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson, 21c Museum, Louisville, Kentucky
COMMENTS
Englishman Daniel Dewar and Frenchman Gregory Gicquel met as students at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Rennes and formed an impertinent duo that loves to tackle any and all materials that fall into their hands, from the hardest rock to the most basic clay. For them, value hierarchies and chronologies are for theoreticians, not artists. Their ambitions lie elsewhere, in making things and colliding with the real. Seduced by their funny, hybrid, often monumental work, which draws from the past as well as from the banal details of daily life, a jury of collectors nominated them for the Prix Marcel Duchamp [which Mammoth and Poodle won in 2012].
- Céline Piettre, ARTINFO France, Web, 9 October 2012
SBMA CURATORIAL LABELS
BORN 1976, FOREST OF DEAN, UNITED KINGDOM;
BORN 1975, SAINT-BRIEUC, FRANCE
LIVE AND WORK IN PARIS
Referred to as “professional amateurs,” Daniel Dewar and Grégory Gicquel boldly traverse new territory, trying their hand at everything from wood and stone carving to ceramics and weaving. The physicality and improvisation involved in their collaborative sculptures is shaped by their shared interest in performance, discovered when they met as students at the École Regionale des Beaux-Arts in Rennes, France. In a time of global mass production, the artists have turned to basic materials and methods of construction, redefining Duchamp’s readymades for a new century.
The colossal, rough-hewn tapestry Mammoth and Poodle represents the duo’s attempt at a “primitive” weaving technique. They used a simple frame, enlarging it to span the full interior dimensions of their studio. With abundant amounts of white and black wool, they decided the white yarn should take the shape of a poodle and the black that of a mammoth—playing off the wooly coats of both animals. With its dense fringe and vibrant imagery, the tapestry merges the elemental stature of the mammoth with the frivolity of the poodle.
Labour and Wait, 2013