Michel Aubry

Over nearly forty years, Michel Aubry has produced a programmatic, protean body of work that cuts across the fields of music, craftsmanship, design, and fine and visual arts. Using a repertory of objects (Sardinian pipes, Afghan carpet, constructivist furniture and architecture, military costume, etc) that he insatiably cites, revisits and interprets, Michel Aubry devises erudite sculptural work that underscores archaic fabrication processes as a translation of a memory and a fragmented culture of the past. In 2013, when he produced the model of Melnikov’s USSR Pavilion for Crédac (Ivry-sur-Seine), the artist delved into the history of its construction. Conceived for the 1925 Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes in Paris, the USSR Pavilion underwent significant modifications. For numerous reasons, particularly economic, steel gave way to wood for the structure. For Michel Aubry, the switch from a modernist, steel and concrete project to traditional construction in wood is symbolic of the moment where encounters and frictions occur between archaism, know-how, desire for change and radicalism.

For Le Printemps de septembre, Michel Aubry reconstructs, reinterprets and sets to music a part of Melnikov’s USSR Pavilion that was intended specifically for the presentation of publications.

With the support of La Fondation des artistes. In partnership with les Abattoirs, Musée – Frac Occitanie Toulouse