![\"\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/87_DO06_Froger_Blazy_Last-Garden-4-scaled.jpg\")
Last Garden<\/em>, <\/em>exhibition view, Le Carr\u00e9, Ch\u00e2teau Gontier, 2013.
\u00a9 Michel Blazy \/ SODRAC (2016)
Photos : Marc Domage, courtesy of Art : Concept, Paris<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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<\/strong>Last Garden<\/em>, vue d\u2019exposition, Le Carr\u00e9, Ch\u00e2teau Gontier, 2013.
\u00a9 Michel Blazy \/ SODRAC (2016)
Photos : Marc Domage, courtesy of Art : Concept, Paris<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Collection d\u2019avocats <\/em>(1997), exhibited at Espace Jules Verne, a contemporary art centre in Br\u00e9tigny-sur-Orge, is exemplary in this regard. For the occasion, Blazy installed pots of avocado seedlings inside a tunnel made of transparent sheeting. Nothing else was on display, just the plants punctuating the space. Showing this work at regular intervals (shown again, for instance, in 2015 in the group exhibition Tout le monde<\/em>, at Cr\u00e9dac, Ivry-sur-Seine) allows its evolution and perpetual metamorphosis to be observed; for example, through the years, some of the trees have flourished, while others have withered or dried out. As Val\u00e9rie Da Costa underlines, \u201cAt any time, the spectator is invited to discover a new phase of the creation and to witness these changes, however subtle they may be. The work self-generates, no longer depending on the artist\u2019s gestures, and, rooted in the real, has the capacity to embody both the spectacle and a state of constant renewal.\u201d\u20092<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 2 <\/a> - Val\u00e9rie Da Costa, \u201cSous le soleil exactement,\u201d Solarium: Michel Blazy<\/em>, exhibition catalogue (Milan: Silvana Editoriale, 2014).<\/span> Consequently, once the exhibition is over, the process does not cease: the living inevitably continues to mutate and change, echoing the intention of the artist not to produce projects that represent definite or fixed forms, \u201cbut propositions at a given moment.\u201d\u20093<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 3 <\/a> - Fran\u00e7ois Piron, Michel Blazy<\/em>, 7.<\/span> With this installation that follows the existence of a group of avocado trees, the artist invites us to rethink the role of humans within a particular ecosystem, and, in a broader sense, to call into question how humanity exercises its power to control other living species. A similar experience within an interior environment was proposed in the exhibition The Last Garden<\/em> (2013), at Chapelle du Gen\u00eateil, in Ch\u00e2teau-Gontier.4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 4 <\/a> - \u00c9va Prouteau, \u201cMichel Blazy, The Last Garden,<\/em>\u201d 02point2<\/em>, supplement no. 2 (2013): 38. Accessed February 28, 2016, www.zerodeux.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/numeros\/revue02point2-n2-2013.pdf.<\/span> In a dimly lit room equipped with a watering system, the spectator is confronted with metal trays, potted shrubs, a ginger rhizome set in a pool of water, and clothing covered in moss. Water droplets that accumulate on the floor progressively create a humid, life-sustaining environment. Finding a new habitat in which to flourish, diverse living organisms\u200a\u2014\u200ainsects, fungi, bacteria\u200a\u2014\u200aproliferate on the plants and in the water. In such installations, the artist demonstrates his ability to create new environments, or, more specifically, functional ecosystems. The exhibition is not intended as a simple juxtaposition of plants in a closed room, for the diverse elements, when scrutinized individually, make little sense. Here, the world of living organisms represents that which connects the individual with other species and their multiple sub-species.5<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 5 <\/a> - Henri Laborit, La nouvelle grille<\/em> (Paris\u2009: Gallimard, Folio essais no. 27, 1985), 12.<\/span> Thus, far from removing humanity from the ecosystems of his installations, Blazy ensures that the visitor can, at least for the time of one\u2019s visit, circulate among the evolving plants and insects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For certain works in his exhibition Le grand restaurant<\/em> (2012), presented at Plateau, Paris, Blazy extended his research to other living entities (plants, animals, fungi). In this vein, the Tableaux souris (Mice paintings)<\/em> series (2007\u200a\u2014\u200a2011) comprises wooden panels coated in various foodstuffs\u200a\u2014\u200avanilla, chocolate, and pistachio custards, condensed milk, and bread crumbs\u200a\u2014\u200aplaced in the artist\u2019s studio, where they were at the mercy of mice, which, nibbling away, drew patterns across their surfaces. Having recourse to rodents in order to \u201cproduce\u201d theses images, the artist integrates the living into the very process of creation itself. The same approach is applied in Le l\u00e2cher d\u2019escargots<\/em> (Snail Trail<\/em>) (2009), which presents trails left by snails, attracted by a mixture of beer and water sprayed onto large swathes of brown carpet. Through both the mice and snails, living creatures facilitate the elaboration of a random form undetermined by the artist. In contrast, two other more complex installations in the Grand restaurant <\/em>series tackle the living as both a rhythm and an organizational model. In the first, Sculpcure, Bar \u00e0 oranges<\/em> (2009), the materials necessary for making fresh orange juice\u200a\u2014\u200aoranges, a cutting board, knife, and glass\u200a\u2014\u200aare placed at the disposal of the visitor. Once the juice has been made and consumed, yellow plastic trays, arranged on shelves along the wall, collect the orange peels, piled one on top of the other. As the days and weeks unfold, the pulp remaining on the peel decomposes, triggering a chain reaction: the development of mould that attracts fruit flies, which in turn attract spiders, etc. From an action carried out by the visitor (squeezing an orange) a miniature ecosystem develops, condensing several characteristics of a living system: different living beings (humans, insects, plants, oranges, mould), the expression of a critical need (the search for and absorption of food), as well as the advancement of relations between species. This forms a succession of steps that allow us to visualize the creation of a food chain.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n The idea of a cycle is emphasized further in the installation Circuit ferm\u00e9<\/em> (2012), the culmination of the exhibition. Inside a small room containing a table and two chairs, visitors can enjoy a beef carpaccio, as long as they\u2019re willing to leave their arms exposed and not to harm the mosquitoes in the room (the hot and humid space also contains vats of stagnant water teeming with mosquitoes). In order to live and reproduce, the mosquitoes need the visitors\u2019 blood. In Circuit ferm\u00e9<\/em>, Blazy again plays off of the relationships between species with regard to food-related and reproductive behaviour, this time within a closed system in which these relationships are predefined. \u201cWhat is taken from the beef is passed on to the mosquito.\u201d\u20096<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 6 <\/a> - Michel Blazy in an interview with Xavier Franceschi. Xavier Franceschi, ed., \u201cRendez-vous au \u2018Grand Restaurant\u2019\u201d in Michel Blazy<\/em> (Paris\u2009: Manuella, 2015), 8.<\/span> Along with food and reproduction, another fundamental need of the living is inhabiting a space\u200a\u2014\u200ajust like the mosquitoes do in this piece, or the flies, spiders, and fungi in Bar \u00e0 oranges<\/em>. All of these species inhabit a common space where a continual battle plays out in regard to their capacity to adapt based on exchange (including parasitism and predation), symbiosis, and cooperation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The living organism is the link that creates connections. Within the body, the connection between cells and organs form a functional structure, a biological structure. Outside the body, the connections among individuals and species form a living world. As Jean-Claude Ameisen highlights, <\/em>\u201cThe relationships that are woven and that living beings continuously weave amongst themselves\u200a\u2014\u200anamely, ecosystems\u200a\u2014\u200aplay a vital role in the renewal of nature and the emergence of the new. And the same can be said about the innumerable extinctions that have shaped the diversity of living systems. For these reasons, what we can preserve is not the current state of the living universe, but its capacity to renew itself, to evolve, and to enable life.\u201d\u20097<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 7 <\/a> - Nicolas Truong, \u201cJean-Claude Ameisen: \u2018Il ne faut pas seulement se focaliser sur le climat\u2019\u201d (interview), Le Monde<\/em> (September 1, 2015). Accessed February 28, 2016, www.lemonde.fr\/idees\/article\/2015\/09\/01\/jean-claude-ameisen-il-ne-faut-pas-seulement-se-focaliser-sur-le-climat_4742693_3232.html.<\/span> Hence the need for Blazy to give free rein to the plural and diverse proliferation of living systems, without trying to tame or standardize them. The artist calls for the non-mastery, the non-control of living systems to \u201clet living matter, living beings, and time take their course.\u201d\u20098<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 8 <\/a> - Val\u00e9rie Da Costa, \u201cDiff\u00e9rences et r\u00e9p\u00e9titions ou comment sculpter le vivant\u201d in Xavier Franceschi, ed., Michel Blazy<\/em>, 332.<\/span> Whereas humans generally tend to dominate their environment to ensure the preservation of the species, it is rather the symbiotic dynamism of the living ecosystem as a whole that allows it to regenerate and reproduce, which, at the end of the day, ensures its survival. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Translated from the French by Louise Ashcroft<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/87_DO06_Froger_Blazy_Le-Lacher-descargots-scaled.jpg\")
Le l\u00e2cher d\u2019escargots<\/em>, exhibition view, Le grand restaurant<\/em>,
frac \u00eele-de-france, Paris, 2012.
\u00a9 Michel Blazy \/ SODRAC (2016)
Photo : Martin Agyroglo, courtesy of Art : Concept, Paris<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"87_DO06_Froger_Blazy_Collection](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/87_DO06_Froger_Blazy_Collection-davocats.jpg\")
Collection d’avocats<\/em>, exhibition view, tout le monde<\/em>, Le Cr\u00e9dac, Ivry-sur-Seine, 2015.
\u00a9 Michel Blazy \/ SODRAC (2016)
Photos : Andr\u00e9 Morin, courtesy of Art : Concept, Paris
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Le grand restaurant<\/em>, exhibition view, frac \u00eele-de-france, Paris, 2012.
\u00a9 Michel Blazy \/ SODRAC (2016)
Photo : Martin Agyroglo, courtesy of Art : Concept, Paris
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