Academic views

An exploration of inner worlds

Sculpture has undergone such a revolution over the last few decades, or more particularly since the 1950s, both in how it is made and what it puts forward on a philosophical level, that we can no longer treat it as some poor relation and assign it a perpetually limited place.

As we have shifted from modernism to post-modernism, from an industrial society to a post-industrial society, and from the rise of social and critical thought to the collapse of ideologies, we have witnessed a fundamental questioning of the accepted idea of sculpture, with the development of all sorts of notions including the weird, the random and the ephemeral, alongside the use of new materials and methods, and a different concept of space.

While retaining her own artistic autonomy, Val was fully aware of all these changes and was conscious in the advances she made in her own work of the tribute she owed to her predecessors. Sculpture is no longer limited by the demands of commemorative statuary or the constraints of blocks and pedestals: it has shifted its focus away from planes and into space, building on its inherent connection with its surroundings and operating instead as a sign. Formalism has become mainstream, but there are many sculptors on the fringes who do not see form as sufficient in and of itself and who continue to hold that there should be a close connection with reality as well as with their chosen material. Through the issues they explore in their work, they reflect on man’s place in present-day society and at the same time question what the future holds.

An exploration of inner worlds

Sculpture has undergone such a revolution over the last few decades, or more particularly since the 1950s, both in how it is made and what it puts forward on a philosophical level, that we can no longer treat it as some poor relation and assign it a perpetually limited place.

As we have shifted from modernism to post-modernism, from an industrial society to a post-industrial society, and from the rise of social and critical thought to the collapse of ideologies, we have witnessed a fundamental questioning of the accepted idea of sculpture, with the development of all sorts of notions including the weird, the random and the ephemeral, alongside the use of new materials and methods, and a different concept of space.

Gérard Xuriguera
Art critic and art historian

Gérard Xuriguera

Val is one of these artists who share a belief in the abiding emotional power of the visual. From the very first she has produced highly stylised human figures whose meaning derives from all that she carries most deeply inside her. What she seeks to capture above all, as she stresses, however, are ‘moments’, moments caught from life, which she fixes in small, medium or large-scale open-framed bronze structures, and which reflect at once an instinct for order and a search for the absolute. For all the wit and energy she injects into the spindly figures she sets amid the commanding verticals of these imposing structures, Val does not seek to conceal an underlying sense of anxiety running through the attempts her figures make to commune, as she seeks to bring them together or at least into closer, brotherly contact.  ‘To create is to open oneself up,’ she comments. [ + ]

While retaining her own artistic autonomy, Val was fully aware of all these changes and was conscious in the advances she made in her own work of the tribute she owed to her predecessors. Sculpture is no longer limited by the demands of commemorative statuary or the constraints of blocks and pedestals: it has shifted its focus away from planes and into space, building on its inherent connection with its surroundings and operating instead as a sign. Formalism has become mainstream, but there are many sculptors on the fringes who do not see form as sufficient in and of itself and who continue to hold that there should be a close connection with reality as well as with their chosen material. Through the issues they explore in their work, they reflect on man’s place in present-day society and at the same time question what the future holds.

Val is one of these artists who share a belief in the abiding emotional power of the visual. From the very first she has produced highly stylised human figures whose meaning derives from all that she carries most deeply inside her. What she seeks to capture above all, as she stresses, however, are ‘moments’, moments caught from life, which she fixes in small, medium or large-scale open-framed bronze structures, and which reflect at once an instinct for order and a search for the absolute. For all the wit and energy she injects into the spindly figures she sets amid the commanding verticals of these imposing structures, Val does not seek to conceal an underlying sense of anxiety running through the attempts her figures make to commune, as she seeks to bring them together or at least into closer, brotherly contact.  ‘To create is to open oneself up,’ she comments. [ + ]

Interview with Val by François-Bernard Mâche
31st of March 2014

F-B.M. : In your biographical data, you mention a decisive encounter for you who came from a completely different world than sculpture. I would like to know more about this encounter.

VAL : She is a person who means a lot to me, I see her every time I come to Paris.

F-B.M. : She is a sculptor herself ?

VAL : After training as an auctioneer, she did sculpture, and today she designs jewellery. They were neighbourly relations at the beginning, we got on well. I was a bit blown away by her culture, which I didn’t have at all in the field of sculpture, painting or antiques. In fact, we spent some really good times together and, one day, she got me to do some sculpting, some modelling. It was like a revelation. My love for sculpture was born in a completely immediate way.

François-Bernard Mâche
Composer. Elected member of
the French Academy of Fine Arts

François-Bernard Mâche

F-B.M. : So, as an adult ?

VAL : Yes, I must have been 33 to 35 years old.

F-B.M. : Without there having been, during your childhood, temptations to tinker, as with many children …

VAL : Indeed, and I was never spotted by any art teacher (laughs).

F-B.M. : It is quite extraordinary, it is generally said that sculptors are people who mature slowly, that they don’t get there until they are about fifty. You have cut corners, you started late but arrived earlier than the others.

VAL : But I think that the maturity acquired during my previous life was extremely important, because there are several things : there are the hours spent at work, but also the personal experience of the man or woman who has something to say, and I think that all the years before allowed me to burn the stages in terms of maturity of the person. I was caught up in a kind of urgency and need to make up for lost time, which meant that I worked enormously, really enormously, during the last twelve years, which are my years of sculpture.
[ + ]