'Here There Nowhere' by Studio Job at Carpenters Workshop Gallery Paris

19 January - 11 March '17

To start the year, Carpenters Workshop Gallery continues its ten-year anniversary programme, dedicating its Parisian space to an exclusive exhibition by renowned design duo - Studio Job.

Entitled ‘Here There Nowhere’ this exceptional solo show from Job Smeets and Nynke Tynagel will be the occasion to present new creations, some of the most emblematic pieces and for the first time drawings.

Recognised for their forward-looking approach, dreamlike and sometimes provocative designs, the exhibition will reveal the scope of the duo’s savoir-faire craftsmanship that floats between audacity, exuberance and technical prowess.

DESIGN & SYMBOLS

Peculiar creatures, hybrid forms or wacky objects, the works of Studio Job invent a kitsch and fanciful world where the object transcends functionality and affirms a ‘Neo-Gothic’ aesthetic championed by the duo.

Authentic figurative scenes in three dimension and tinged with irony; the creations of Studio Job play upon and thwart iconographic references, notably religious.

The piece ‘Chartres’, a detailed reconstruction close to the architecture of the cathedral, hides underneath a diptych door entirely covered in obscure figures delicately gilded with leaves.

Skulls, snakes and insects: iconoclastic symbols convoluted with sarcasm.

POLITICS & NARRATION

Behind the displayed exuberance, the design duo also affirms a satirical and political stance, as in the luminous sculpture ‘Big Ben (Aftermath)’.

A reinterpretation of the emblematic London monument and allegory for the Western, the work stages their cynical vision of a world in decline.

As storytellers, the object is never the starting point of a narrative but the whole story.

‘Train Crash’, an epic collision of two steam trains borrowed from the imagery of Western films, has the pretext of a table that despite its imposing mass defies the laws of gravity.

Alongside great history, grand monuments, cinema, or popular culture, Studio Job also draws inspiration from the anecdotal to create realistic, but always humorous ‘situational-objects’.

For example ‘Cat Fight’: a brawl between two cats becomes a pretext for a luminous sculpture.

BRONZE IN ALL ITS STATES

A material favoured by the duo who have mastered all its codes, bronze is tamed and endlessly worn down. Whether painted, polished, burnished and gilded… the savoir-faire of Studio Job’s workshop allows them to cut loose from the material’s constraints and grant all its freedoms.

Depending on the pieces, the use of noble materials such as hand-blown glass and marble are added to the bronze, with which the designers then compose their pieces in very limited editions.

Essential preliminary stages, drawings and preparatory plans also constitute real works in themselves. Amongst the sculptures, four of them will be exhibited in ‘Here, There, Nowhere’: a new voyage in the Studio Job galaxy.