| Dates: | born 1964
| | Biography: | 1964 Born in Marseille.
Lives and works in Bordeaux
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1999 Project Arcs Volants, Circular
Quay, Sydney
1998 In and Out, Bremen Kunst Center,
Bremen
Over Port, Calais project, Calais
1997 Beau Temps pour la Saison,
Espace d'Art Contemporain Cimalse et
Portique, Albi; Centre d'Art
Contemporain Chapelle Saint
Jacques, Saint Gaudens; Centre d'Art
Caixa de Viskaiya, Bilbao
1996 Over the Rainbow, Kunsthalle
Dortmund; Rotterdam
1995 Realisation de 3 sculptures
volantes. Col de Peyressourde
1994 Realisation de 3 sculptures
volantes, flottantes, Soulac Medoc
1992 National Yorkshire Sculpture Park,
Yorkshire
| | | Source: | "Trace, 1st Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art", Festival catalogue | | | Date of source: | 1999 |
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| | Description: | Thomas Lanfranchi uses lightweight
materials to create environmentally
responsive sculptures. Many of his
projects have been wind blown, taking
the form of kites or wind socks. He has
installed these pieces at sites across
France and on buoys at sea. On a
recent visit to Australia he made a
journey around the outback, creating and
documenting a new airborne sculpture
each day to suit the site. Working with a
type of plastic commonly used for
shopping bags, Lanfranchi is able to
make very large structures that are
capable of being supported by the
lightest breeze. When they are
destroyed after the exhibition an object
the size of a blue whale collapses into a
carrier bag.
Lanfranchi's sculptures have a formal
beauty - often incorporating two colours,
such as blue plastic and clear plastic, to
produce stripes or chequers - and yet
they are ephemeral by nature. As such,
they belong in the French tradition of
Daniel Buren, with whose work there are
formal similarities. Lanfranchi's objects
are also delicate and playful translations
of traditionally monumental land art.
While they are short lived, and often
succumb to the wind that is the medium
of their structure, they reveal the invisible
power of nature. They too are
monumental, for a time. For TRACE, the
artist has designed a large kite-like
object for the Senate building of Liverpool
University.
| | Description Source: | "Trace, 1st Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art", Festival catalogue | | Description Source Date: | 1999 | | Gender: | male | | Type: | person |
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