Francois Weil (né en 1964)

Welded Iron & Granite Coffee Table Glass top Circa 2005-2006 Signed W-L: 160 cm x H: 40 cm ------------- "Everything starts from a point, an obsession, we turn around it, while it turns too; it trembles, vibrates. An absurdity that cannot be dismantled, that imposes itself. It just allows you to leave a trace. I was part of that moment. François Weil's passion for sculpture began at the age of 6. Before embarking on his studies in Paris at the École nationale supérieure des Arts appliqués et des Métiers d'art, then at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, he produced his first works in clay in 1979. "Sculpture seems closer to reality, so it's much more exciting," he says. His work is an oxymoron: it combines the massiveness of stone and the lightness of its mobility, animation and inertia, stability and imbalance. Movement is everywhere: the rock masses articulate and gravitate around a central axis operated by the viewer. The animated sculptures are transformed into a ring where stone, a natural material and expression of reality, confronts a mechanism that is an "avatar of human construction". "The technique simply allows us to play with reality," explains François Weil. Moved by the spectator, the stone offers itself as a challenge to weightlessness. François Weil expresses an "unstable equilibrium". "Harmony can only be conceived by taking the elements as close as possible to what they are, by considering them in their living state". A harmony of imbalance that plays on our perception. "Our perception and reality are accustomed to this game of hide-and-seek, perception imbued with our desires and needs for appropriation. Humanity has always sought to understand and master its environment. In this quest, which concerns us and our fellow human beings In this quest, which concerns us and our fellow human beings, our various means of expression only tend towards reality. This manipulated, diverted material, like a fool's game, attracted French gallery owners as soon as he left school in 1989. From then on, one thing led to another, and in particular to numerous monumental works from one end of the globe to the other: in China and Guatemala, in Germany and Russia, in Belgium and Mali... He then settled between Onzain (Loir-et-Cher) and Issy-les-Moulineaux (Hauts-de-Seine). His growing renown won him the Prix Pierre Cardin from the Académie des Beaux-arts de Paris in 1997, and nine years later, the Grand Prix at the Poznan Sculpture Biennial in Poland. In line with his work with materials, François Weil also practices photography and engraving. His fascination with animation also leads him to video. Reality is not fixed," explains the artist. Matter is never immutable; it always maintains a relationship with time. Making films allows us to take notes or transcribe this fact, even if it remains an approximation." Grave and slow, his films are far from the antithesis of his sculptural practice. "The same source feeds my work, despite the change of medium. Sculpture, film and printmaking feed off each other. I'm interested in a wide variety of things without knowing in advance what I'm going to do with them, without a predetermined or conscious subject." Whether film, engraving or sculpture, the subject remains stone, whether basalt, slate, granite or marble. "I rarely intervene in the aesthetics of a stone. Or, more often than not, it's to try and conceal this intervention and keep the spirit of this material, preserve its word." In 1997, François Weil was awarded the Prix Pierre Cardin by the Académie des Beaux-arts de Paris. Then, in 2006, he won the Grand Prix at the Poznan Sculpture Biennial in Poland. In 2016, he was awarded the Fondation Pierre Gianadda prize at the Académie des Beaux Arts in Paris. Exhibitions: 2023 - Limits put to the test. Three sculptors. Marc Ferroud, Etienne Viard, François Weil, Galerie Berthet-Aittouarès, Paris, France 2018-2019 - Fondation Arp, Clamart, France 2015 - Saint Étienne Church, Beaugency, France 2014 - Matmut Art Center, Saint Pierre de Varengeville, France 2013 - Château de Chambord, France 2009 - Musée de Montélimar, Montélimar, France 2006 - Musée Hébert, La Tronche, France 2002 - Comblain au Pont, Belgium 2001 - Le Bateau Lavoir, Grenoble, France 1997 - Musée Hébert, La Tronche, France - Beaume de Venise, France - Bouchemaine Abbey, Bouchemaine, France 1995 - ARP Foundation, Meudon/Clamart, France - Center d'arts plastiques Albert Chanot, Clamart, France 1994 - Galerie Antoine de Galbert, Grenoble, France 1990 - Espace Achard,