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SIGN7, contemporary artist
in August 1863, the family of Eugene Delacroix announced his
death by giving him, in the
obituary notice,
the title of "history painter". It was legitimate, although
Delacroix was much more than that, and socially necessary,
because that name was then the most prestigious.
Today, a talented artist
with
forms
of expression as remarkable as
well as
customizable (just like Delacroix in
his time) chose a pseudonym: SIGN7, and a title:
Contemporary Artist, with two capital
letters.
This intentional
claim is very interesting because it
points out
the new situation in which artists are placed today.
Let’s take
three examples of the approach SIGN7.
Firstly,
during the 61st Cannes Film Festival in 2008,
golden frogs
designed by SIGN7 stormed the beach of the Carlton
Hotel
during the
Crystal Beach Chopard
event, while a series of groups
of four red letters
forming the word LOVE
was
plotting against the sky
. It is
difficult to design a facility more "contemporary" to
translate the essence of Cannes during the festival.
Secondly,
far from the glitz of Cannes, SIGN7
embed also his reflects
on the contemporary world in an active collaboration with
organizations which aim
is to ease the suffering of
human condition: Companions of Emmaus, Action against
Hunger, Unicef. For him,
an
artist is or is not altruistic:
He couldn’t blossom
enclosed within the walls of
his
workshop. His photographs
illustrate
his travels alongside humanitarian organizations and we
understand better the scope of one of his most iconic
creation,
"The Totem of Children’s
right" which was sponsored by
the City of Paris for Mission Paris 2000. It was the
representation of the fundamental principles in the life of
the child. The symbols of the pencil, the roof and the
ladder, became a
sculpture covered in bright colors
chosen by
the artist for his entire work, were
the simple means to convey a message of solidarity
and humanity
of the artist. In this new register, SIGN7 seemed
particularly modern.
And finally a third
example, among many others,
of SIGN7’s modernity, is his
current project "Masks and Totems." Firstly, let us recall
that in societies formerly called primitive, masks and totem
poles were on one hand
mediators between men and occult worlds and on the other
hand, signs facilitating solidarity between members of the
same clan. SIGN7
criticizes with a cheerful ferocity
the
new
masks and totems of capitalism globalized society obsessed
by money. The masks have become credit cards and totems,
columns of letters. We think
we are not far
from a Hans Haacke example, and
we are
right because SIGN7 succeeds only by the means of its
artistic
approach,
to denounce the "Clan like
functioning of the main contemporary capital holders"
this
post-pop would also be a concept that has very specific
things to say. This is definitely enough, you will agree, to
justify the claim of
SIGN7 for the name of
contemporary artist.
But what is quite obvious, is not acquired
either,
because for as much as those who today have the power to
grant the label - the members of this famous "art world"
once described so well
by George Dickie - have not yet, to my knowledge, attributed
it to SIGN7. Would
they
wait by any
chance that
they have to write the announcement of its demise? Let's be
serious: it is not normal that the term "contemporary art"
has been confiscated
since a few decades,
by
various entities and individuals who
all
have in common not to be artists. SIGN7 audaciously offers
an example to follow: he
states
himself that he is a contemporary artist, and above all he
proves it. The time has perhaps come for artists to take an
essential power that
concerns them:
noming.
jean-Luc Chalumeau
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