Space Echoes

Théo Mercier is a French sculptor and stage director whose artistic prowess unveils harmonic contradictions of sculpture. Mercier’s work is a testament to his commitment to freedom, challenging the mechanisms of history, objects, and representations. As a resident at Villa Medici, a Marcel-Duchamp prize nominee, and a Silver Lion recipient at the 2019 Venice Biennale, Mercier’s journey explores the topics of anthropology, geopolitics, and beyond. Each piece becomes a narrative that dismantles conventional notions and invites viewers to contemplate the nuanced intersections of art, culture, and the world by dismantling the concepts of time and space. 

hube: Could you tell us about the influence of your personal background and cultural experiences on your artistic practice? How do these elements shape your perspective and the stories you choose to tell through your art?

Théo Mercier: I didn’t study fine arts. For some years, I went to a School of Design in Paris and in Berlin. I’ve always been very interested in how things are made, and I must admit that I draw more inspiration from industrial, daily life objects and crafts such as carpets, ceramics, or shampoo bottles than from art itself. I always wonder why things are made in a more practical and conceptual way. For me, objects are not only about material and fabrication but there is also an economic and political aspect to reveal. In my work, objects are most often the pretext for talking about humanity and our relationship to one another. 

h: Your work often combines various mediums, from sculpture to performance art. How do you choose the medium for a particular concept, and how do these diverse forms of expression contribute to your artistic vision?

TM: I’d like to see my work as an answer. Whether it’s an exhibition or a performance, my ideas are usually ‘reactions’ to something, to a space, an audience, an economy, or a way of producing. I always look for the most appropriate medium to answer some kind of muted question. It’s like imagining what would be the most relevant language to speak in. I’m free to use the medium and the materials that feel the most appropriate, and it often depends on the space and context. It could be an entire mono-material environment such as sand sculpture, a composition made out of some antique sculptures that were stored in the basement of a Museum for years, or an installation made out of recycled waste… In fact, it is a very sensual and intuitive way of choosing the medium. 

h: You once mentioned that you listen to the space. Can you elaborate on this, how exactly does it happen? 

TM: I don’t really know… I guess this is the magic of being an artist! This is just the thing I’m good at. I often say that I’m not inventing anything; everything already exists, and my job is to bring out the ghost of space because most of the time it’s the space that’s telling me what to do. So I need to take time to observe it and to listen to it. 

I’m asking myself — what is the sound of this space, who’s coming forward, and who’s that guy that looks like a security guard? For me, it is essential to understand the space as if it was a piece of territory. I wonder: what is the temperature, what is the quality of light? When people enter space, are they speaking loudly, or do their voices go quiet? All these little clues help me to imagine what’s the most appropriate thing to do.

And there is a radical difference between doing this job within institutions where three people visit per day, or in institutions where 4000 people visit per day. Sometimes, people are coming for my show; and sometimes, they are coming because it’s a patrimonial monument. So, I always do different types of work for these spaces. When I say that I’m listening to the space, to what the architecture really is, I also think of how it’s feeding these people, almost as if it was an organism. I visualize it as a big animal with humans inside, and I think of how the humans are moving there and what type of humans they are… These are all the things I have in my mind when I look at a space. 

Strangely, my ideas come with visions. And for that to happen, I need to spend time sitting and walking in the space where I will present works. And suddenly things happen, I have some visions or words in my mind, I take notes and do some rough drawings. I feel a little like a detective asking the space what the enigma is, what I will have to resolve this time…

h: Modern technology, particularly in the form of communication, is creating new kinds of visual experiences. How do you imagine the audience will interact with your work in the next 50–100 years? And do you have any thoughts on what this audience might be like? 

TM: This is a difficult one! Well, as I said, I usually work with organic and concrete materials, objects and environments, as if I were in a central vessel, and so on. I’m afraid that this might be the last of the materiality of a scene, and the last of the direct contact between humans and objects… Sometimes I am afraid that it’s really going in that direction. But at the same time, it will necessarily bring new shapes, new ways of seeing, and enthusiastic things. If we lose something we’ve been used to doing for centuries — like making sculpture, for example, in my case, or an object — we will probably lose it, lose the way of making things and the way of looking at things… something new will surely come. But I think we would probably be too old, and won’t be artists anymore. I mean, I might be too old, maybe!..

h: Artists have always had a unique relationship with time, to the past, present, and future. How do you approach the concept of time and temporality in your art? Do you see your work as a snapshot of a moment, a commentary on the present, or something else entirely?

TM: I’d like to see my work as a time travel. Or as some crazy f*cked up time machine: it can move back and forth in all directions and bring great confusion in its relationship with time. Because I usually mix different materials and codes in my work, sometimes it looks like it’s the past of the future and the future of the past at the same time. Still, I do hope that it’s also truly present, in the sense that it’s an anchor in the world, that is not completely disconnected from what we’re living through nowadays. I do my best to create a dialogue between those three notions of past, present, and future. I often talk about my work as a machine to dismantle time. As if it was a nonstop crazy journey through ideas, matters, space, and time. 

h: How do you perceive contemporary art’s role in addressing social and political matters? 

TM: Depends. In these times, being a contemporary artist can really be a dirty job. This is what I’m trying to avoid. I think, politically, there are many things to invent as an artist through our way of producing, collaborating with a team, and with the institution. As I’ve said before, I try to make my work an anchor in the world. Most of the time, contemporary art seems disconnected from where the world is now in its way of doing and producing. I think the world is beautiful and fascinating but I also think there is an emergency and we need to make big changes so that the world is not such a neoliberal place.

h: What are you working on right now?  

TM: A new play called Skinless. It will be a very graphic performative installation. A landscape made from wastes that I’m sourcing in short-circuit. It’s based on the same idea as OUTREMONDE, my previous project made from sand. Now it’s a new chapter, with a new matter, with a new material that we collect: aluminium wastes and dirty paper. It’s not a piece about ecology though. It’s rather a piece about love, desire, and the leftovers of said desire. About something we wanted so badly and then, suddenly, we don’t want or can’t have anymore.

h: And when are you going to present this project?  

TM: In March in France, and then a large tour in Switzerland, Italy, the USA, and probably Brazil. The planet is a world of waste, and this massive issue makes Skinless a potentially never-ending piece to tour in the world. I am also working on new sculpture productions as part of the upcoming permanent exhibition of the Mucem Museum in Marseille. I was invited for a special Carte Blanche by the curators of the Museum to enter into dialogue with the collection. It’s very exciting because it will be a long-term project that will last six years. 

h: Can you describe the future in 3 words?

TM: Will, be, mutant.