François R. du Plessis – Der rote Faden

Der erste Blick auf die Arbeiten von François du Plessis fasziniert und irritiert zugleich. Vielfarbige Strukturen, Oberflächen wie Stein, Maserungen wie Jahresringe von Bäumen. Verschiedenste Assoziationen tun sich auf, aber das Material bleibt rätselhaft. Erst auf den zweiten Blick ist erkennbar, dass alle Werke aus Büchern gemacht sind. Buchseiten, Buchdeckel, Buchrücken, Lesezeichen – das ist es. François du Plessis Material ist das Buch. Ein Material, dem er unzählige Darstellungsmöglichkeiten abringt: Mal aufrecht nebeneinander gestellt betont er die skulpturale Qualität des Buchs, mal mit Farbe geweißt verweist er auf dessen Objektcharakter. In der Verwendung von bunten Büchern tritt er in einen Diskurs mit Analytischer Malerei und Informel.

Formal spannend und abwechslungsreich, inhaltlich vielschichtig. François du Plessis verwendet meist einen Buchtitel aus der Arbeit als Werktitel. Zufällig oder bedeutungsschwer? Die Titel öffnen Interpretationsspielräume, wie auch allein die Tatsache, dass hier ein Kulturgut höchsten Ranges scheinbar nur als Objekt gesehen wird. Tradition versus Moderne? Analog versus digital? Oder doch nicht?

Für die Stern-Wywiol Galerie zeichnet der Künstler in der Ausstellung „Der rote Faden“ seine Auseinandersetzung mit dem Buch als Bildhauermaterial nach. Das Buch ist der rote Faden im Werk. Oder ist der rote Faden gemeint, der als Lesezeichen aus vielen seiner Skulpturen hervorspringt?

François du Plessis lotet vermeintliche Alltagsgegenstände inhaltlich und formal neu aus, indem er die abstrakte Formensprache der Moderne aufgreift und umdeutet. Er nimmt so eine wichtige Position im zeitgenössischen Diskurs der „grenzenlosen Skulptur“ heute ein.

François du Plessis’s book objects are irresistible. They catch the eye with their beauty, their carefully balanced harmonies and disharmonies, their precision craftsmanship and, crucially, their mystery. Their obvious appeal is, at the very latest upon a second glance, accompanied by a sense of bewilderment and provocation – the essential ingredients of true beauty.

For the material from which these objects are made is the book. The book in all its forms and variations. From a simple paperback from the station bookshop, through a hymn book with gilt edges, to an illustrated volume on design classics – everything is included. François du Plessis usually buys his working materials directly from publishers or from specialist second-hand bookshops. Occasionally, as part of a commission, he also uses books from a very specific context for his objects – for example, from an estate, or by a particular author or publisher. By his own admission, he is interested in books exclusively as material, as objects with specific properties, structures and colours. Can that be? Can a book be mere material?

Or is the artist deliberately leaving us alone with his works and the nagging question of whether it is permissible to use books as raw material?

Books are a cultural asset, even in the internet age. Whilst we might discard a technically obsolete (i.e. no more than three years old) digital e-reader without much hesitation, the need to dispose of books we have finished reading, or which we find uninteresting or embarrassing, presents us with a dilemma. Well-made books are extremely durable objects. People are reluctant to throw books away. This is because even the most trivial book represents a centuries-long Western tradition in which the knowledge of the age was stored and passed on in books.

Added to this reflection on the symbolic significance of the book is another aspect: François du Plessis incorporates everyday objects into his art. Through his works, he encourages us to reflect on our relationship with objects themselves. What of our relationship with objects, and our respect for them? Is this not fading in an age when we no longer know how something was made, or the effort and labour it took to produce our possessions? Can products whose life cycle is limited by the manufacturer to a single season or a few years really evoke any emotional attachment in us at all? Objects capture time – we are emotionally attached to the heirloom that our grandmother once wore or on which our father used to sit and read the newspaper. Which of the things that matter to us today are capable of storing time? On closer reflection, are not the things that really matter to us also those that can store time? Do not books – and specifically in their printed form – rank among the foremost of these repositories of time?


François du Plessis never poses any of these questions explicitly, and yet they form the backdrop against which his work unfolds. Long before creating his first book-object, the artist collected books without any particular purpose in mind. As a painter, he searched for a long time to find a form of expression that suited him.


The oldest work in our exhibition dates from 1994; it is a painted canvas combined with found objects to form a collage. Eight years later, François du Plessis used books as a base for his painting for the first time. The transition from painter to sculptor – one who conceives of books as bodies in space and assembles them into independent three-dimensional objects – seems obvious in retrospect, yet is the result of years of persistent exploration. The artist is constantly developing new techniques through which he explores the material properties of his medium and repeatedly elicits different, unexpected forms from it. For around four years now, François du Plessis has been working with coloured book edges, thereby giving colour a defining role in his work. In a sense, this also marks a return to his beginnings as a painter, even though he no longer needs a brush.

As always, I would like to draw your attention to our catalogue, which accompanies the exhibition and, for the first time, offers a retrospective view of the work of François du Plessis, whilst also paying due tribute to his current works.

I hope you enjoy the exhibition and thank you for your attention!

Dr Kathrin Reeckmann, Hamburg, 29 January 2015