Yann Sérandour

Yann Sérandour has turned the artist’s book into a conceptual tendency, the main source behind his thinking and his work. Shifting from the space of the book to the gallery space, he can just as well come up with a bookish sequel to a famous Ruscha work or devise an exhibition by transforming a carefully striped text by Buren into a mural print. But there is no question of adopting the position of an heir presumptive, for the methods and strategies of the elders are also a means of reading and interpreting contemporary and trans-historical themes and issues.

Cactus Cuttings (an exhibition currently on view at the gb Agency), outcome of a lengthy investigation about the taste and uses of a plant, brings together natural sciences, decorative arts and the sociology of culture. Based on an image found in a magazine, the artist has constructed an atlas and an indoor garden, drawing us into a gentle daydream somewhere between a vision of tamed nature and the almost hallucinatory vision of an invasive and even devouring desert landscape. These botanical and historical cross-sections will provide the basis of our dialogue.