Archives

Éric Hattan

09.26.08 - 10.19.08
Exhibition — École des beaux-arts de Toulouse

Eric Hattan, exhibition view, École des Beaux-arts de Toulouse, ©DR, Le Printemps de septembre 

Eric Hattan, exhibition view, École des Beaux-arts de Toulouse, ©DR, Le Printemps de septembre 

Eric Hattan, exhibition view, École des Beaux-arts de Toulouse, ©DR, Le Printemps de septembre 

Eric Hattan, exhibition view, École des Beaux-arts de Toulouse, ©DR, Le Printemps de septembre 

Born in 1955, he lives in Basel (Switzerland) and Paris.

 

A matter of perception and environment: the Swiss artist Eric Hattan has a sense of situations, and his whole work, whether it involves sculpture, video, installations or actions in public places, is focused on modifying the given aspect of reality. To modify considerably our perception of the commonplace. 

 

What is your artistic proposition about?

The exhibition space, which is intended to be a “white cube”, is in fact a “black box”, all closed windows and artificial light. I use it like a black box: the wall outwards, with real windows behind, becomes the screen, and the projection “windows” open out towards a distant horizon... It's an ensemble consisting of nine video projections, of different formats. For example:
-Seen from above, flight from Reykjavik to Egilstadir, from sun to snow
-Fog filling a valley
-Bits of ice moving in the water
-The boat leaving the fjord in the fog (very short repeated sequence; the boat does not really move forward)
-Melted snow sliding on the window
-An ice cube melting
-A snow storm
 

What does art enable you to do?

For me, art is a labour of transformation. It is neither a solution nor really a product. You have to understand this attitude as a point of departure: I regard my work as a tool for opening up new doors for myself, new viewpoints, without knowing the goal. Each time I find myself facing crossroad situations which force me to take a decision about the direction to take and the path to follow. But as with city plans that you unfold, I never see the whole network.