Alan Fertil and Damien Teixidor Transform 40m3 into Hybrid Urban Landscape

At 40m3 in Rennes, the duo Alan Fertil and Damien Teixidor present 'Arcane Vanilla,' an exhibition running from April 12 to July 12, 2014. The show reimagines public space through skateboarding culture. A Rick Ross portrait greets visitors, part of a series of hybrid sculptures called 'Homeboyz' that blend ritual masks with articulated drawing mannequins, each adorned with a bandana. The artists reconstruct a public square featuring an unseen fountain hidden under camouflage-patterned fabric, urban furniture covered in blue-and-white tiles reminiscent of seaside architecture, and amorphous sculptures evoking 1960s vivarium rocks. Four PVC prints hang from the ceiling like beach ball tournament ads, transformed into exquisite corpses mixing palm trees, parrot wings, vanilla pods, and flint points ('Greetings from Fiji'). Fertil and Teixidor's work examines how public spaces are designed for specific uses but can be subverted by users, drawing on their skateboarding practice as a visual paradigm of fluid movement, accelerated perception, and collisions. However, skateboarding is not the artwork itself; it informs their creative process, and in the stillness of the exhibition, the work gains a plastic dimension.