*Swans*, Installation view, Stuart Shave/Modern Art London

Nicolas Deshayes, *Fresh Towels, 2018*, Stuart Shave/Modern Art

For Deshayes’ “Swans”, the motto is look, don’t touch.
The room is large, bright, sparse, it’s pristine spaciousness only interrupted by pops of muted yet colorful sculpture. Spotlights beam down from the surprisingly high ceilings, and land gleamingly onto the impeccably polished surfaces of Nicolas Deshayes “Swans”. There is a psychosomatic, sensual effect of the glossy, smooth, and sumptuous sculptures, they beg to be touched. The spacious showroom allows for intimate observation and a private connection with each work. The space given to each work lends itself to time, as the longer you look at each work, the more familiar it seems, warmer. After moments, the works feel surreally human, and reminiscent of human innards, imposing the idea of something we are deeply intimate with, yet will never get to touch, to hold. There is a level of remove from myself and my internal plumbing, a remove that is reflected when seeing household plumbing parts removed from their context. The air in the showroom is filled with the wantan intimacy of something so close, yet so far. The strangeness of this feeling of intimacy is a demonstration of the disparity between the organic chaos of the human anatomy and the decidedly packaged and sterilized existence that is imposed on humanity. Deshayes addresses these concepts through his exploration of surface, and the tension between the desire to touch and the distance inbetween.

Deshayes’ practice is heavily indebted to minimalism, and can often be interpreted as a post-minimalist aesthetic. Though he has previously stated that his work are not representational of the body, the are most certainly bodily. In his earlier works Soho Fats, 2012 and Sebum(c), 2012 Deshayes draws parallels between the human subject and its residual traces by reminiscing on the human residue of fats that can be found in sewer systems.

From this vision Deshayes continued his exploration of the parallels between the body and the city sewer system in his first solo show at Modern Art, Thames Water, 2016. In this show Deshayes bridges internal and external systems by creating an anatomy of the gallery space. Deshayes’ sculptures comprised of cast iron and hot water, doubled as functional pipes, working in connection to the existing water pipes in the gallery, and adjacently to the city of London’s water system. The surfaces of these sculptures were rippled and blemished, warm from the water running through them, their shapes in uncanny resemblance of intestines. Desahayes is interested in the inner workings of plumbing systems, and their omnipresence, whether acknowledged in the body or in a grander view of the waste systems in greater London. As we can see in his new work, Deshayes is not only making a parallel between the city and the human form, but is intent to stress the human presence within the city, the sewer, and in his sculpture.

In his new exhibition “Swans”, Deshayes evolves from industrial style metal work and rather creates sculptures made from glazed earthenware, fabricated using a slip-casting process in Italy, and references all that is soft and malleable, indicators of life and human function. Consistent with his exploration of anatomy, Deshayes is also continually concerned with turning things inside out. His “Swans” evolved from his exploration of the hidden systems within the body, and now also refer to the hidden systems in our domestic environments, the appliances and systems that are used to collect, clean, and carry waste away. These works scale our understanding down from the city sewer system, to plumbing systems in our very homes, and finally to the plumbing systems within ourselves. Deshayes has created an homage to subtle and mundane household appliances that receive little special attention, yet even support crucial and necessary functions of the daily life.

The first work presented on entry is Fresh Towels, 2018, a subtle yet overt reference to the body’s plumbing system, and its similarity to domestic kitchenware. The work consists of two fleshy color sculptures side by side, the left consisting of the anthropomorphic shape of a human backside, and the right with an anthropomorphic shape suggestive of a male pelvis and genitalia, due to the positioning of a cylinder shape jutting out from it. Though the corporeal color of the work builds its sense of tacility, there is a surrealist aspect to the works, they don’t quite work just as they seem they should. The positioning of Fresh Towels, 2018, begs the viewer to imagine them fitted together, but the shapes just aren't quite right. This concept echos Deshayes self proclaimed interest in the way pieces fit together, especially in plumbing systems. Extrapolating from this idea, the bathroom becomes a metaphor for the ways bodies link together sexually: a series of holes and tubes that interlock variously into one another. Fresh Towels, 2018 is the perfect opener, as the work equips us with a discerning eye upon entry. The viewer now can’t help but adopt a near-lusty eye for more anatomical references, a strangely scatological view of sculpture, and anything else seemingly surreal.

Nicolas Deshayes, *Lakes, 2018,* Stuart Shave/Modern Art

Lakes, 2018 brings in the feminine dimension of this theme of internal plumbing. This work also consists of two pieces presented side by side, again in smooth fleshly tones. The piece on the left exhibits a smooth surface, with a half sphere cavity, and an even smaller indentation at the center bottom of the cavity. It looks like the basin of sink, embedded in countertop. The piece on the right, is a mirror reflection of the left, consisting entirely of a basin like cavity, with a spherical shape jutting from within, with an additional raise from the center of the sphere. It looks like a breast with a nipple. This rendition acknowledges the internal plumbing system of the breast, and a the nipples for which acts as a pipe for breast milk.

In this exhibition Deshayes has provided an approach to contemplate the organic chaos that makes up human bodily systems, and revisits our understanding of how systematic they truly are. Deshayes builds a bridge, acknowledging the similarities of systematic function that our internal bodies have with outer systems in our society. By exhibiting these similarities Deshayes exposes the unnatural lack of intimacy we have with our own internal system. He probes the viewer to acknowledge how removed they feel from the functions that go on within them, that sustain their life in the most mundane ways. Deshayes sets the tone for a greater appreciation of the systems of the body that must go one. By acknowledging the human body functions, inputs, outputs, and residues, Deshayes reminds us that in a severely sanitized and compartmentalized external world, there is still plenty unknown left to explore within.

Bibliography

Anand, Keshav. “Nicolas Deshayes: Charting The Sculptor’s Exploration Of Surface.” Something Curated, March 2, 2017. http://somethingcurated.com/2017/03/02/nicolas-deshayes-charting-the-sculpt ors-exploration-of-surface/
Rees, William. “Nicolas Deshayes: Thames Water, Stuart Shave/Modern Art Review.” thisistomorrow, 12 August 2017. http://thisistomorrow.info/articles/nicolas-deshayes-thames-water
Itsliquid. “nicolas deshayes – swans.” Art. December 24, 2018. https://www.itsliquid.com/nicolas-deshayes-swans.html

Can't Touch This; Nicolas Deshayes "Swans" Review

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