In the Meanders of Memory

The mysterious presence of Five Figures in Oblivion (2020) arranged in the shape of a star, sums up Laurent Petit’s approach. Shapes, material and color evoke memories and fantasy, history and maybe even mythology. More than a tribute to five giants of sculpture – Auguste Rodin, Constantin Brancusi, Jean Arp, Max Ernst and Louise Bourgeois – these quiet poetic works testify to the ceramist’s interest in questions of memory and vestiges.

(…) Since 2018, Laurent Petit has been developing three families of works: Mythologies, freely inspired by founding tales of ancient Greece (La Détresse d’Achille and La Superbe d’Achille, La Querelle de Calydon, Mémoire labyrinthique…), Vestiges, sculpted blocks with enigmatic drapery, and finally, Élégances du chaos, which combine chaotic forms with more geometric grid structures.

(…) The ceramist creates a universe based on dualities: humankind and nature, the robust and the fragile, balance and chaos. Material – rough, eroded – is inseparable from color. He plays with surface effects, the gloss of vivid memory and the chalky matte of fading memory. White dominates, but is adorned with signs, concretions and splashes, like marks of vanished polychromy.

(…) For the show at the Stadtmuseum in Siegburg, he has chosen to show a set of Mythologies and Vestiges, to which he has added new works Rêve d’archéologue inspired by the spirit of the exhibition site.
(…) Laurent Petit sees these pieces as imaginary “excavation squares”.
This new series marks a return to vivid color. The most buried memories resurface in the brightness of green, yellow, red or violet. The memory becomes lighter, more joyful.

Extracts from the catalogue of the exhibition Sculpting Memory / 2024 / Stadtmuseum Siegburg (Germany)

Guillaume Morel
Journalist & Art Critic