Founded in Saint-Étienne in 2006 by François Ceysson and Loic Bénétière, subsequently joined by Bernard Ceysson as artistic advisor, the Ceysson & Bénétière Gallery initially expanded its presence to Luxembourg, Paris and then Geneva. In 2017, Ceysson & Bénétière opened in New York. For us, multiplying exhibition spaces is neither an obsession nor a goal in itself, but simply a matter of better serving our collectors, whose trust in us is greatly appreciated. Within the context in which artistic creation develops and spreads nowadays, it is also a matter of showing to best effect the artists whom we decide to promote because we are convinced of their talent and, for some – notably exponents of the ‘Supports/Surfaces’ movement – because of their historical importance.
Aurélie Petrel expanded the notion of photography, by going beyond traditional flat prints and creating a dialogue between architecture and environment. In order to give volume to her images, she explores different places, observes several devices, while crossing different time zones. This instability allows her to create a work in perpetual movement and to focus on the status of the image, its modes of apparition and materiality. In her work ‘Paradoxe’ (2017), she gathers a series of metallic pillows suspended in the exhibition space using tight and rigid wires. This installation draws inspiration from the works of the American architect Peter Eisenman (1932) and his practice of architectural deconstruction. From the inherent logic of his forms, she extracts a material that merges with the texture of whispered sentences. It is not space sought for by the artist in the architect’s sketches and axonometric views, but the line. At times clinical, at times hesitant, this line is superimposed onto the lines of other drawings, thereby adding a sense of material, volume and dimension.
