Eric Baudart's Alchemical Sculptures at Fondation d'entreprise Ricard

Eric Baudart's exhibition at Fondation d'entreprise Ricard in Paris, from February 11 to March 26, 2011, transforms everyday materials into poetic, illusionistic sculptures. The show opens with Wall Boxter (2002), an organic form emerging from the wall made from a Porsche car door. The first room evokes a marine universe: a monumental glass jellyfish lies abandoned on a metal plate, while a heap of fishing nets titled Cosmos rests on another. A large crystal tondo hangs low enough for visitors to gaze into it like a sea or sky, its blades rising from a mirror created by mixing resin and water. A sheet of graph paper, each line traced with a cutter, shows a light blue surface eroded by time, illuminated by a round lamp like moonlight. The second room features manufactured objects as markers of an era: unfolded and cut packaging of yogurt makers or helmet-shaped hair dryers are pinned like butterflies on a metal background. Three tanks filled with oil ranging from yellow to black contain functioning objects whose actions are altered: a slowed fan, a disappearing drill in splashes, a hair dryer producing a hot breath drawn in the liquid. With extreme economy of means, Baudart tracks the real, appealing to the imagination. His earlier exhibition at Galerie Chez Valentin earlier that year explored a more minimalist aspect of his work, not without similar sensuality.