Translator: Clare Borradaile Reviewer: Didar Omar
How are artworks brought to life?
And in particular, how are shapes brought to life in artworks?
Those that we create.
But also those that we find in nature.
What could they teach us?
And if, for example, let’s say... in the movements of a dancer
we find something like a coral branch
or a piece of bark,
what can we conclude from the creation of these forms?
At the age of ten,
I was a “little rat” at l’école de danse de l’Opéra de Paris
and I was already asking myself this type of question.
I didn’t have much by way of answers.
Especially since classical dance doesn’t necessarily encourage
creating new shapes with your body.
You know, we try to reproduce the already-existing forms instead.
And, at 18, when I was in the process of becoming a professional dancer,
a completely unexpected event reignited these questions
about how we create artworks, how we create shapes.
In my first role as a soloist, I was gravely injured.
I had to stop ballet for good.
And this has allowed me to better understand
how we can produce new art forms
because in no way have I stopped dancing.
Rather, I have chosen to dance differently.
And I started to paint.
In fact, I decided to integrate dance movements
into those of painting
to not only create shapes with my body
but also to create them on the canvas.
When you paint in this way,
you start by putting the canvas horizontally,
you pour liquid paint on it,
lots of painting.
Obviously, the paints are going to run and you have these shapes which appear.
And then, you can position these shapes, you can lift up a corner,
you can even completely remove the canvas.
and to tell the truth, you can start dancing with the painting.
First and foremost, by doing it this way,
I have been able to create, for example, this type of artwork.
As you can see here, I make each of my movements with precision,
as a dancer would,
to position the movements, the colours,
and to get as close as possible to what I wish to achieve.
But, obviously, let’s be honest, the paint stays very liquid,
thus in part, uncontrollable, and chance here is in its element.
And for that matter, we don’t only find it
in the way in which the paint runs,
we also find chance in the way in which the colours mix
or, for that matter, don’t mix, who knows?
We find it in the way in which the paint dries,
in the textures that appear when they are dry.
Let me tell you:
chance is found at all levels of artistic creation.
This is, perhaps, how shapes are born.
In bodily motion and in the partly random movements
of painting in motion.
And it is amazing to think that the chance event that happened to me,
first in the form of a loss, at the time of my injury,
has now become my best ally
when I needed to invent something new, to create.
As if it was my attitude towards chance that changed the situation.
And this, I think, is an important point.
The attitude that we adopt when we face unforeseen circumstances
will radically change the story that we write.
Therefore, it is essential to understand
how chance affects our creations.
You see, for example,
in oral expression,
the diversity of words, vocabulary, enriches language.
Similarly, in artistic creation, the diversity of forms,
our ability to create new ones, enriches artistic expression.
So if we, as painters, want to move forward,
and if any of you want to move forward
with what you’ve created, with what you’ve begun,
you need to be able to understand the effect of chance on all of that.
So, let’s take an example.
You have an idea in your head,
you want to paint something,
you start, but, naturally, chance makes an appearance.
You are not going to get exactly what you imagined.
Chance is going to propose something else.
Great!
And of course, if you start again lots of times,
you will undoubtedly get something different each time.
As if chance has offered you a few variations on a theme.
You have an idea,
and it’s going to send you a bit to the left, a bit to the right,
a bit more like this, a bit more like that.
If we were looking for one simple image to represent
how chance behaves, its offering of an infinite number of new variations
on your starting idea,
I think we would quickly settle on the image of a lichen.
Why lichen?
Apart from the fact that sometimes my paintings resemble it slightly,
lichen is a biological structure that fascinates scientists,
particularly because of its tendency to grow
in all directions at random.
It goes both right and left, up and down.
It explores, if you like, all the dimensions of space,
a little like how chance will take us one time in one direction,
and then another time in the other, in a perfectly unsystematic way.
This lichen, it’s in a way an image of the effect of chance
on what we create.
It’s one image, but it isn’t the only one.
And let me tell you,
I’m not sure it’s necessarily the one that best takes into account
our capacity to direct what we become, what we do.
In lichen, there isn’t really a choice, a desire
to choose the direction.
And you see, for example, if I look at this picture here
that I painted very recently,
I find that it still looks a little like this one,
which I painted a lot longer ago.
As if there was a bit of a guideline,
a common thread between the two.
And if we look at this one, we again see this common thread.
I think this common thread is needed
in what we do.
Finally, I did not go in all directions at random.
I only went in one,
or in a few, eventually.
So,
what image can we find to represent the behaviour of chance?
Not one that pulls us in random directions but one that helps us to go
more strongly and surely in the direction that we would like.
The image we’re looking for is a glacier.
A glacier, you see, is able to plot out its regular, winding route
between two mountains whose forms are completely unpredictable.
It is able to assert its direction, its path, in spite of geological hazards.
I would say that it’s even more than that, it’s an example of stability
in an environment that is in itself unstable, irregular.
And that, I believe, can inspire us.
Yes, that’s it after all: to be an artist,
maybe be like a glacier.
It’s a richer and more interesting image than that of the lichen
because it proposes another way of dealing with chance, an active one.
It’s not only being impervious to chance events,
it’s giving them the place that you think should be theirs.
And there, in my opinion, is the real work of art.
It’s not only about, as we sometimes hear, “leaving it to chance”,
it’s about developing a complex relationship with it.
Letting it play a role,
but without giving up our own.
And it is perfectly possible to guide it,
while remaining attentive to it.
It’s in this way that chance is really at the heart of creation
without calling into question the work of artists and their role.
And it’s also in this way that chance has allowed me to find my path.
Slowly, of course,
but with strength and determination.
Like a glacier which slowly advances between two mountains.
So, finally,
to give chance its rightful place,
I think we may still have to
make it our dance partner.
Yes.
For painting as for everything else, I think it is above all
about learning to dance with chance.
Thanks for listening.
(Applause)