Tipping Point
Interview
(excerpt, p. 5)


Simon Castets – A large part of your work is based on the mathematical figure of the catenary (a transcendental curve describing the form of a hanging chain suspended from its ends and acted upon by a uniform gravitational force – its own weight). You present it upside down, as an arch supporting its own weight. How did you end up experimenting with this form and using it, and how do you realize it?

Vincent Ganivet – Games based on balance, construction and its inherent catastrophic potential have always fascinated me. I first discovered the properties of the hanging chain—the inversion of a self-supporting arch—through Gaudi's models; then, I experimented in the studio, exploring the limits and the complexity of this form. I see my intervention as a displacement: after plotting out a design, I use ancestral building techniques – centering, lifting, dry masonry (without mortar), to erect a thoroughly contemporary industrial bloc. Along those “natural” lines, the cinder-block – though still heavy and coarse, but not glued or coated as usual – now appears delicate and fragile. It is merely wedged together for the duration of an exhibition; afterwards, it could well be used for the wall of any suburban house.

SC – Why is this aspect in particular so important to you? Is it related to the very nature of these works, which are as ephemeral as a magic trick?

VG – I do like this idea of a magic trick, of a passing diversion of reality. I pick out one element, and present it in an improbable way, but without alteration so it can go back to how it was—this is how good tricks work. It may seem like a fabrication, but there is no secret, no illusion. I am not hiding anything, you can see the wedges and the straps. I don't use glue.

SC – Do you define these pieces as sculptures or installations? In a previous interview, you referred to them as “sculpture at work”

VG – Though I have always refused to consider myself as a sculptor, I believe I came very to close to sculpture here. Most of my “installations” result from mechanical systems and procedures– be it dynamic or static. I set in motion a process, a way of working. Form follows. It's true, though, that these arches and twists have an air of sensuality.

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