| Anne e Patrick Poirier
Anne, born in 1942, Marsiglia. Patrick, born in 1942, Nantes. They live and work in Paris.
Aphrodisias, 1989
moulage with Japanese paper, glass
125 x 50 cm
Courtesy Galleria Studio G7, Bologna
JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS
From landscape to landscape, from ruins to gardens our journey has been unfolding without maps or compasses. It
started in 1966, thirty years ago, without us even noticing, without us taking track of its length and without us realizing what a journey like this, still lasting today, entailed.
A journey without maps, during which we discovered places and signs of our cultural memory bit by bit; during which
we collected traces, notes, documents, photographs, notebook pages like stubborn archaeologists.
We have been persisting for thirty years with the risk of getting lost, however we continue in persevering in this physical and mental roaming, driven by a massive curiosity, not as much as for the Past, as a lot of people thought, but rather for this essential faculty which is part of us and bares the name of MEMORY, compared by Sigmund Freud, also a lover of archaeological metaphors, to Ancient Rome. Because we deeply think that Memory and the learning of different cultures lays at the base of an individual intelligence, be it among beings or among societies. That ignorance or destruction of the very cultural memory implies all the forgetfulness, all the lies and all the excesses. That reproach, violence and intolerance, in its most disgusting forms, are perpetrated by ignorance and destruction of Memory and Nature and, that we need to fight, each according to their own week means, this amnesia and this indiscriminate destruction.
[...]
Curiosity for our culture, but also for other civilisations, is suggested by the desire to understand the surrounding world, even though this comprehension is far too complex to be attained, if not in a very poor proportion. At least this journey is adventurous and unpredictable. It is not one of those organized trips of which the contemporary world, including art world, is overfilled with. Not one of those journeys with forced stops, with itineraries, indications and tour guides. It is
a real voyage, with its storms, its risks of wrecking and dead calm times, but also with its unique experiences and
its unforgettable discoveries.
Plato said about philosophy that "she is worth taking a chance..." this is what we think also art is about.
A. & P. P.
