Morphosis (Environment 5)
Hugo Servanin
Magasins Généraux | Pantin, FR
Institutional
17.03.23 - 07.05.23Solo exhibition at Magasins Géneraux
Pantin, FR
Morphosis (Environment 5) is Hugo Servanin’s largest exhibition to date, spanning 800 square meters. Morphosis (Environment 5) took place in conjunction with Servanin’s Spring 2023 residency at Magasins Généraux and was curated by Anna Labouze and Keimis Henni.
“It all begins with the creation of a library of bodies, supplied with casts made directly from the skin by the artist in his studio. An intimate and meticulous anatomical process, which makes it possible to capture the detailed imprint of the flesh of the models who have agreed to undertake this arduous exercise: freezing their movements for hours, prisoners of the plaster that hardens.
The fragments thus obtained are manipulated and augmented through the insertion of pins, prostheses, assemblages, and other surgical interventions. They become bodies of glass, clay, and gypsum through the production of casts that have mobilized numerous artisans and required the development of specialized engineering and know-how. The figures that emerge, hybridized by these successive operations, gradually become spectral projections, chimeras, members of a post-human society where bodies in their diversity coexist and merge.
A stream, its water drawn from the Ourcq Canal, flows through an evolving and changing environment, a breeding ground for these organisms. From one organism to the next, from a main gutter to a network of fine veins, the flow penetrates, connects, and breathes life into the structure. Plants take root and spread, microorganisms develop and adapt, symbioses form, and the entire building comes alive.
These new beings, these “Giants” as Hugo Servanin calls them, reflect the fragile nature of the human body. They require daily attention and maintenance. The artist and his team ensure this, making the Magasins Généraux an extension of the studio, a nuclear greenhouse where worlds germinate. Until the end comes. Then comes the time of embalming, of the ceramicized bodies, wrapped in glass shrouds and placed inert on containment trays, like industrial waste. They symbolically transmit to the liquid they overlook the means to nourish the living. Morphosis is a cycle, a chain of interconnected bodily transformations, a fantasy of harmony.”
Text by Anna Labouze and Keimis Henni