Blasons 2009

Curator: Right, let’s discuss Daniel Dezeuze’s "Blasons" from 2009. It’s a mixed media piece involving watercolour and other techniques, offering a contemporary take on heraldic symbolism. What springs to mind for you? Editor: Haunting, in a way. Each shield-like form, stained in delicate blues and blacks, looks almost as though it was dredged up from the bottom of the sea, encrusted with melancholy. Curator: That's evocative. I think what is captivating here is how Dezeuze deconstructs and reimagines traditional emblems. He merges the ‘high art’ of painting with, well, almost craft-like assembly of mixed materials to question the established artistic hierarchies. Editor: Exactly. These aren't your ancestor's coat-of-arms. It feels almost like Dezeuze is stripping away the pretension and bombast often associated with heraldry and revealing something fragile and ethereal. What are the 'blasons' of our era, anyway? Curator: Hmm, food for thought. The repetition and arrangement of the metallic studs that seem to hold the "shields" together definitely call into question the ready-made art, as though he emphasizes construction and assembly more than the aesthetic appeal. Editor: It certainly breaks the barrier between object and canvas; you know the history with this artist and "Supports/Surfaces" breaking with traditional practices to put into question, even negate, any reference. So the focus of our eye jumps from painted pattern to these…what are they attached to? Canvas, of course, a flat, neutral ground. Curator: I suppose it’s down to the surface where the material of paint reveals the material of the other elements and where everything coexists: pattern, studs, form. I agree, the symbolic element almost dissolves and the physicality gains in strength. It is as though the heraldic meanings break apart, no longer so relevant and rigid. Editor: It all evokes something very fleeting, fragile, transient, as if questioning permanence in today's mass-produced image world. Not one thing that lasts, but things transforming or things breaking up in front of our very eyes. Curator: An excellent note on which to pause. Dezeuze seems to play both with cultural symbols and with the concept of art-making. Thank you. Editor: The pleasure was all mine, indeed, thanks.