VITA ACTIVA

Lorsque j'ai rencontr Brigitte Zieger, il y a cinq ans, elle travaillait sur des figures de cascadeurs, mis en situation de danger entre des murs instables. Ses uvres, vidos, dessins et installations, semblaient toutes participer un ensemble, plus exactement un programme. Celui-ci se caractrisait dj par une attention toute particulire porte lide de responsabilit.
En effet, la notion dauteur dsigne chez lartiste la fois la signature et la responsabilit dans l'acte de production. La vido Serial Self (1999) est ce titre exemplaire qui, par les techniques du modelage et du montage, transforme la chevelure de lartiste (en pte modeler) en une arme imposante dont elle se servira fatalement. Avec les Shooting Wallpaper (2006), Exploding Wallpaper (2008) et autre Tank Wallpaper (2009), cest notre responsabilit qui est mise en cause dans ces papiers peints bourgeois, colors et rassurants, dont nous tapissons notre environnement, comme un voile sur les ralits.
Avec les Sculptures anonymes qu'elle ralise depuis 2008, Brigitte Zieger interroge notre rapport l'Histoire. Elle propose un travail engag, restitu dans la sphre publique sous la forme de monuments rigs la mmoire de hros ordinaires: La jeune fille face la police militaire, Le garon le jour de l'indpendance, L'homme qui arrte une colonne de chars. Ces figures anonymes sont entres dans notre imaginaire collectif, en mme temps que dans l'histoire contemporaine, par les journaux tlviss, les magazines, lInternet, le cinma. Et cest limage de lՎvnement, avant tout, qui reste en mmoire.
Laspect des sculptures trahit bientt cette ralit : elles ne sont pas compltes, mais comme coupes en deux ; le creux nest pas cr par des retraits de matire, mais par le moulage. Ce sont des sculptures dimages : l o le postmodernisme s'interrogeait sur le statut du monde fictionnel cr par l'uvre d'art et son rapport au monde rel, les Sculptures anonymes de Brigitte Zieger semblent motives par dautres considrations : le monde est devenu fiction et cest luvre dart qui permet prsent de revenir au rel. Les sculptures hsitent constamment entre le volume et le contour, le plein et le vide, comme entre la clbrit et lanonymat. Si elles traduisent bien lanonymat par leur facture (on ne distingue pas les traits des visages), leur couleur (noire) et leur dimension (humaine), elles sapparentent pourtant des monuments : par un fin travail sur les volumes, lartiste parvient leur rendre humanit et fonction commmorative ; mais un monument chelle humaine, proche et accessible, et qui ne serait quune enveloppe endosser, essayer assurment, un modle suivre.
Dans Condition de l'homme moderne (1958) Hannah Arendt opre une distinction entre travail et uvre et montre comment, ds l'Antiquit, le travail tait considr comme futile, car li la consommation et au prissable, tandis que l'uvre tait valorise car synonyme de responsabilit. La socit industrielle a impos une sparation des tches synonyme de dissociation entre producteur et produit, et du mme coup une carence de mmoire de lobjet produit, donc d'humanisme. Le Bauhaus tentait de prserver les individus de ces effets pervers : "L'homme, et non pas le produit, est le but" (L. Moholy-Nagy).
Les sculptures anonymes semblent participer un programme global qui raffirme la priorit de laction sur le travail et luvre. Il faut transcender sa condition par laction, semblent dire ces sculptures qui voquent le projet politique de la vita activa :  comment mener une existence vritablement humaine ? . Grce lart, rpond Brigitte Zieger, qui souhaite que le bronze de La jeune fille face la police militaire soit install dans un espace public,  l o luvre peut prendre place .

*Brigitte Zieger, laurate du prix Maif pour la sculpture 2009.

o
Attention uvres piges
Baited Artworks
(press version)
Philippe Fernandez
o
o
Attention uvres piges
Baited Artworks
(catalogue version)
Philippe Fernandez
o
o
Sculpture des images
Sculpture of images
Dominique Pani
o
o
La qualit n'a pas de sexe
Excellence has no sex
Estelle Pags
o
o
The Shadow
Gilles A.Tiberghien
o
o
Vita activa
Florence Derieux
o
o
Eye-Dust
Philippe Fernandez
o
o

Femme dangereuse
Dangerous Woman
Bndicte Ramade
o
o
Pieces of Possible History
Julie Crenn
o
o
 

VITA ACTIVA

When I met Brigitte Zieger, five years ago, she was working on a series of stuntmen positioned in dangerous spaces between unstable walls.  Her works, videos, drawings and installations all seemed to be part of an entity, or more precisely a programme, which already then touched on, in particular, the notion of responsibility.
Indeed the notion of the author for an artist designates not only the signature of a piece, but also his/her responsibility in terms of the act of production.  The video Serial Self (1999) is a perfect example of such, in that, through the very techniques of modeling and editing, the artist's hair (in plasticine) is transformed into an imposing weapon which she uses with fatal results. With Shooting Wallpaper (2006), Exploding Wallpaper (2009) and Tank Wallpaper (2009), it's our sense of responsibility which is called into question through the bourgeois coloured and reassuring wallpaper with which we paste across our environment, like a veil curtaining reality.  
With the Anonymous Sculptures that she has been making since 2008, Brigitte Zieger has been questioning our relationship to History. She presents a body of work that is militant, and is returned to the public sphere in the form of monuments to ordinary heros: Young woman facing the military, Boy on Independence day, Man who stopped a column of tanks. These anonymous figures have become part of our collective imagination and also contemporary history, through televised news, magazines, Internet, and the cinema. And it's the image of the event, above all, that is retained in memory.
The actual aspect of the sculptures soon betrays this reality: they're not complete, but look as if they've been sliced in two; the hollow part is not created by matter being removed, but by the mould. They are sculptures of images: where postmodernism questions the status of the fictional world created by the artwork and its relationship to the real world, Brigitte Zieger's Anonymous Sculptures seem to be motivated by other considerations: the world has become fiction and it's the artwork that allows the present to become real again. The sculptures constantly waver between volume and contour, full and empty, as with between celebrity and anonymity. While remaining anonymous due to the way they've been made (one can't distinguish any facial features), their colour (black) and their (human) scale, they still seem to be related to monuments: through a fine working of volume, the artist manages to render their humanity and commemorative function: but each is a monument on a human scale, close and accessible, that is but an envelope to endorse, and try out assuredly, a model to follow.
In The Human Condition Hannah Arendt reveals a distinction between work and artwork and how, since Antiquity, work was considered futile, as it was linked to consumerism and the perishable, while an artwork was valued because it was synonymous with responsibility. The industrial society imposed a separation of tasks synonymous of the dissociation between producer and product, and at the same time a lack of memory relating to the object produced, and therefore of humanism. The Bauhaus tried to preserve individuals from such perverse effects: Man, and not the product, is the aim (L.Moholy-Nagy).
The Anonymous Sculptures seem to participate in a global programme that reaffirms the priority of action over work and artwork. One must transcend one's condition through action, these sculptures seem to be saying, which evokes the political project of the vita activa: How to lead a truly human existence? Through art, says Brigitte Zieger, who wants the Young Woman facing the military bronze to be installed in a public space, where the artwork can have a real place.

* Brigitte Zieger, 2009 Maif sculpture prize laureate.

Translation by Carmela Uranga