Femtensesse is pleased to present Windings, a solo exhibition by French artist Clémence de La Tour du Pin. Her artistic practice comprises different mediums such as sculpture, painting and assemblage, often with a tactile aspect. The presentation at Femtensesse includes a series of painterly assemblages and a sculptural work, all created in 2021. And outside the gallery, on the street of Oslo, fragments fromthe artist’s archive are presented on posters for local passers-by. The works on view impart glimpses of the intimate sphere, where the personal and decorative are accompanied by shadows of fragility and collapse.

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Windings displays an array of welded armatures carrying layered aggregations of diverse fragments. Nets, feathers, sequence, webbing, clothes and glitter are just some of the paraphernalia immobilized by the fabric assemblages. The wall-mounted metal structures remind of 1920’s stained glass windows. In the lone floor object, the decorative trim from a lampshade is presented on a found plexiglass case. Torn from its origins, this element cedes its past by becoming a formal representation of the exhibition’s title.

The technique of winding the fabric around the metal speaks to both protection and degradation. This contradiction is paralleled by the ambiguous nature of hoarded interiors, where a plenitude of items are arranged together in a domestic environment. Antique relics and lowly materials clash together, externalizing the inner psychic confrontation. With muted palettes, desaturated tones, and a dirt-ridden appearance the materials enforce a patina of oldness. Yet, by looking closer, the synthetic fabrics yield shiny textures and generic patterns.   

Through its raw power and anachronistic reflection, Windings gives pause to the premature assertion of value. Outside of the exhibition space hangs a set of posters depicting enlarged screen captures from a music video. These ghostly images are taken from a female disco trio in the late 1970’s. Here time winds back on itself like a strange maelstrom. Not linear, but spiral.

– Lilith Sachs

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Clémence de La Tour du Pin (born 1986, Roanne) lives and works in Paris where she is a current resident at Cité Internationale des Arts and Rotterdam. She is a previous participant of De Ateliers, Amsterdam and MSA^ The Mountain School of Arts, Los Angeles, in addition to her education from London School of Art, Architecture & Design. Recent solo- and duo exhibitions include «A Sudden Wilt» presented by 15 Orient at Balice Hertling, Paris; «sept préludes», Museo Pietro Micca, Turin; and “Architecture of Tess”, 1857, Oslo. Recent group exhibitions include «Buning Brongers Prize», Arti & Amicitiae, Amsterdam; «Upstairs», Femtensesse, Oslo; «Digital Gothic», CAC – Synagogue de Delme, Delme; «HUNGER», Dortmunder Kunstverein, Dortmund; «Hinkypunk», Billytown, The Hague; and «Co-Workers – Artist as Network», Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Paris. This summer she will be a resident at CAPC – musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux and in the fall she will have a solo exhibition at Smart Objects in Los Angeles and a duo exhibition with Adolphe Monticelli at April in Paris in Aerdenhout. 

The exhibition is kindly supported by Arts Council Norway, Oslo Municipality and KORO – Public Art Norway.