Interview with Jean de Rancé : "Une autre ville" at the Orléans Museum of Fine Arts

 

Ceci est la traduction en anglais, par Danny Rukavina, d'un entretien paru récemment ici-même.

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Jean de Rancé. -.  Soon at the Orléans Museum of Fine Arts, an exhibition devoted to Renaud Allirand.  Among the works by this artist includes a book, Une autre ville, for which you wrote the text. Frédéric Tison could you tell us about how this book came about ?

 

Frédéric Tison. -.  Actually, Jean de Rancé, it’s not so much a book as a journal. In fact, it’s a collection of poems, 24 pages in large format, illustrated by Renaud Allirand, as a result of a marvellous meeting. The story behind this collaboration originates in a walk that dates to the winter of 2011. I sometimes go with a dear friend to visit contemporary art galleries in the different streets of the Marais in Paris. One day we entered Renaud Allirand’s workshop in rue Debelleyme and I was stunned by the beauty of some gouaches that were displayed in the window.  I bought some postcard copies from a discreet young man who was there and whom I didn’t notice immediately.  Later, in doing some research on the Internet, I realised that the young man I saw was in fact the artist. A little bit later, I went back and asked Renaud Allirand if I could take some photos of his gallery to post on my blog.  He gave me his permission willingly and was very nice about it.  I decided to put into writing my impressions about the artist & engraver to go with the photos, which I sent him.  He invited me to come and see him again.  This time, to expand on what I wrote with the goal of presenting his work in future exhibitions, which I did.  And that’s how our friendship began.  On his own initiative, he took an interest in my work and a few months later in the autumn of 2012 he asked me about a possible joint venture.  I suggested using five unpublished poems I wrote entitled Une autre ville which were to his liking. He gave me a series of drawings in Indian ink and engravings to illustrate the poems. We then put together a mock-up of the work and looked for a publisher. In February 2013 the journal Une autre ville came out. The first thirty copies included an original drawing in Indian ink.

 

J. de R. -.  In a few words, what attracted you in Renaud Allirand’s work ?

 

F. T. -. I particularly like in Renaud Allirand’s work that indeterminateness found in dreams, a mixture of abstraction and reality. Even if the material of a work is a very important element, one never ‘trips’ on it ; you can look at it and ask yourself : is it a window, a tree, a landscape seen or something imagined from afar, a city in the night, a shadow of a palace, an abandoned port, a shipwreck, a starry sky, or an open book ?  Hardly has one decided on a possible interpretation when the image disappears or vanishes in the ‘traces’ of ink in the gouache or the contours of the lines.  And then one sees the stain, the stroke, the colour of the tree or window that reveal themselves again. The sheer beauty of the works also resides there in their hard to pin down nature. In terms of the poems of Une autre ville which evoke fallen figures and hover around absence and loss, Renaud Allirand and I felt a harmony to exist between the images and the text.

 

J. de R. -. Do you have any joint projects in the future ?

 

F. T. -. Seeing that this first project was well received, I don’t see any reason why it should be the last.

 

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Une autre ville will be available at the Orléans Museum of Fine Arts bookshop to coincide with Renaud Allirand’s exhibition in the graphic arts department from September 5^th to December 8^th 2013.

 

 

Translation by Danny Rukavina.