Jean-Baptiste Lenglet
Diffraction, 2022
Glazed stoneware, painted steel
56 x 44 x 255 cm
22 x 17 3/8 x 100 3/8 in
22 x 17 3/8 x 100 3/8 in
Composed of angular modules, like off-center architectural blocks, Diffraction reads like a stack of narrative fragments. The pictorial motifs, traced directly through a ceramic cutout, introduce a dynamic tension. This...
Composed of angular modules, like off-center architectural blocks, Diffraction reads like a stack of narrative fragments. The pictorial motifs, traced directly through a ceramic cutout, introduce a dynamic tension. This piece evokes both a contemporary ruin and a data totem, where signs constantly reorganize themselves. The glaze used on Diffraction is distinguished by its contrasting treatment, linked to a direct drip application onto the clay. Each module was manipulated so that the glaze flows through the cutouts, creating broad pictorial gestures that evoke traces, sweeps, or residues. These interventions inscribe the gesture in the material, reinforcing the idea of an ongoing process or a partially erased object. The cutouts evoke both abstract motifs and more narrative elements such as characters. This refers both to a cinematic logic of sequences, the column being like the montage of these sequences, and to the work of a painter like A.R. Penck. This approach, which combines references to brutalist architecture, modular sculpture, and digital composition, makes the work a form in tension between structure and entropy. It thus offers an interpretation of the totem pole no longer as a stable figure, but as an open construction, traversed by flows of information, energy, or memory.