claudia comte

I HAVE GROWN TALLER FROM STANDING WITH TREES, COPENHAGEN CONTEMPORARY,

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK

I Have Grown Taller from Standing with Trees, 2019

As a totalising experience of light, scent and sound, ‘I Have Grown Taller

from Standing with Trees’ embraces the full force of nature. At the same
time, it is nature’s cemetery of felled trees, mirroring the effects of our
current era in which human activity directly impacts Earth’s biological
systems. The installation reminds us that we are part of a greater whole
where strong cooperative networks are as vital for trees as they are for
humans.

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FRUITS AND BODIES, VILLA WENKENHOF, RIEHEN, SWITZERLAND, 2018
 WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH, KÖNIG GALERIE, BERLIN, GERMANY, 2018

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, 2018

‘When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth’ brings together multiple aspects of Comte’s
work with a particular focus on the history of materials and the play be-
tween ancient and digital technologies. Returning to the use of wood, mar-
ble, and bronze in craft and industrial production which have long played an
important role in her work, the exhibition can be seen to ‘look back to look
forward’. In uncovering prehistoric technologies, as well as systems and
languages in contemporary forms, the exhibition proposes that connections
between these ideas might provide help to navigate the Anthropocene.

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 10 ROOMS, 40 WALLS AND 1046 M2, KUNSTMUSEUM LUZERN, LUZERN, SWITZERLAND, 2017

10 Rooms, 40 Walls, 1059 m2, 2017

This title outlines the agenda behind this, Claudia Comte’s first large-scale
survey exhibition. The artist will use 10 rooms, create 40 wall paintings
and fill 1,059 square metres. Needless to say, this is not just a diligent
but routine job! The artist’s burgeoning installations, seductively polished
sculptures and perfect colour gradients provide a great degree of pleasure.
Comte makes reference to Abstract Expressionism, Op Art, Pop Art and Con-
crete Art. She also allows herself to be inspired by popular culture: she
uses a chainsaw to make larger-than-life cactuses out of tree trunks, she
grinds huge rabbits’ ears out of marble, and discovers the shapes of dino-
saur bones concealed in industrial design.
 INSTALLATION VIEW ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH, MIAMI, USA, 2017

SCULPTURE OBJECT 53: THE SEAWEED, 2017

OAK (TOP) AND EBONY
70 X 38 X 19 CM; 27 1/2 X 15 X 7 1/2 IN

HALF CIRCLE PAINTING, BLACK & WHITE #6, 2017

ACRYLIC ON CANVAS, FRAMED
200 X 100 CM; 78 3/4 X 39 1/3 IN
LA FIN DE BABYLONE – MICH WUNDERT, DASS ICH SO FRÖHLICH BIN! KÖLN SKULPTUR #9,
SCULPTURENPARK COLOGNE, GERMANY, 2017
 LA LIGNE CLAIRE, BASEMENT ROMA, ROME, ITALY, 2017

LA LIGNE CLAIRE, 2017

In La Ligne Claire the gallery space is transformed into a grid of lines and
patterns. In an overarching black and white arrangement, wall paintings are
splattered, sprayed, painted and stencilled against all the available sur-
faces as if to test the limit of a limitless medium, breaking styles and
temporal references, while two large-scale, diamond shaped canvases, concen-
tric circles painted in a smooth monochromatic gradient hue, partially cover
these ambitious wall paintings. In sections, plinths prortrude outwards as
if to cut out from the wall itself, extending the mural painting into a
third-dimension; they act as sumptuous platters on which three starfish sculp-
tures sit. These marine invertebrates are an exquisite predator, that have
complex life cycles. While they can reproduce both sexually and asexually,
they lay here heavy, cast in marble – fullfilling simple axioms of geometry,
rendering nature’sgeometric matrix visible.

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 NOW I WON, ART BASEL MESSEPLATZ, SWITZERLAND, 2017

NOW I WON, 2017

‘NOW I WON’, a new monumental outdoor installation by Claudia Comte, curated

by Chus Martinez, Head of Art Institute at FHNW Academy of Art and Design,
Basel was presented for the first time during Art Basel 2017. Situated di-
rectly on Messeplatz – right in front of the exhibition halls – the work took
the form of a fully functioning funfair. Here the artist was challenging the
audience to various games and activities including darts, bowling, arm wres-
tling, mini golf, dancing competitions, and more. Comte’s own works, such as
her target paintings, wooden or marble sculptures are part of the very envi-
ronment in which the audience was competing to win an original artwork by
the artist.
 DESERT X, HOMME-ADAMS PARK, PALM SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA, 2016/2017

Curves and Zigzags, 2016/2017

Curves and Zigzags is the third work from an ongoing series of free-standing
walls that straddle painting and sculpture. Comte’s practice embraces all
media with equal ferocity and she uses this series to examine what happens
when two-dimensional painting is superimposed on three dimensional structure.
Unlike graffiti artists her walls are built specifically for the work they
carry. In Curves and Zigzags, the painting starts with a stringent geometric
composition that gradually morphs into a more organic wave like pattern remi-
niscent of Bridget Riley optical paintings or the gardens of Burle Marx.
Playing on the constant exchange of dualities – nature and culture, order
and chaos, geometric and organic form – Comte’s wall suggests a walk through
the shifting sands of abstraction and on to a place where beauty and contem-
plation sit side by side.

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 COLLINS PARK, ART BASEL MIAMI PUBLIC 2016, MIAMI, USA, 2016

Claudia Comte’s work regularly combines natural objects or surroundings with

hypnotic, rigid geometric motifs drawn on a monumental scale. Using the
possibilities created by the repetition and serialization of simple modular
forms, her immersive wall paintings clash the formalism of Op art abstrac-
tion with a carefree twist on modernist sculpture.

128 TRIANGLES AND THEIR DEMONSTRATION, 2016

ACRYLIC ON WALL
300 X 600 X 15 CM; 118 X 236 1/4 X 6 IN
 DOMAINE DU MUY | PARC DE SCULPTURES CONTEMPORAIRE, LE MUY (VAR), FRANCE, 2015

128 SQUARES AND THEIR DEMONSTRATION, 2015

This mural consists of a green and black geometric grid on a wall measuring
3 x 6 metres. Claudia Comte frequently creates monumental paintings that
literally submerge the viewer and the works that surround them in hypnotic
patterns. The repetitive rhythms and vibrant colours of these paintings
distort with playful frivolity the canon of visual art and Minimalist paint-
ing.

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 LE PRINTEMPS DE SEPTEMBRE, FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL D’ART TOULOUSE,
BASSIN DE LA GARONNE, TOULOUSE, FRANCE, 2016

OUI NON, 2016

River performance
Echoing her exhibition at Espace EDF Bazacle, another aspect of Claudia
Comte’s sculpture will be on display just for an evening. Recently, a number
of her works were used in a novel game developed on an ice rink with a hock-
ey team. In Toulouse, the words OUI and NON (yes and no) will be placed on
the waters of the Garonne Basin, their geometrical lettering relating to the
monumental, spectacular scale of an alphabet of tree trunks set alight. In a
number of events organised by Dada (a movement whose centenary is being
celebrated this year) these two words were presented as equivalent: yes =
no. This equation will give rise to a simple choreographic movement in which
they will float along, one behind the other.

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 THE CURVES, THE CORNERS AND THE MACHINES, LE PRINTEMPS DE SEPTEMBRE,
FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL D’ART TOULOUSE, LE BAZACLE, TOULOUSE, FRANCE, 2016

Plastic Sculpture Objects, 2016

plastic Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene, paint

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PLASTIC SCULPTURE OBJECT 37: LITTLE SNEAKY SNAKE, 2016
PLASTIC ACRYLONITRILE BUTADIENE STYRENE, PAINT
80 X 33 X 13 CM; 31 1/2 X 13 X 5 IN
 THE LANGUAGE OF THINGS, PUBLIC ART FUND EXHIBITION,
CITY HALL PARK LOWER MANHATTAN, NEW YORK CITY, USA, 2016

The Italian Bunnies, 2016

Veined and polished marble

This site-responsive installation speaks to Claudia Comte’s interest in

repetition, patterns, and subtle variations of forms within her practice.
The shapes of the individual sculptures reference the language of modernist
abstraction, while also reading as cartoon-like figures, with each taking on
its own character. Together they form an anthropomorphic family on the lawn.

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 GARTENSCHAU, KÖNIG GALERIE, BERLIN, GERMANY, 2016

THE BIG MARBLE SNEAKY SNAKE, 2016

MARBLE
280 X 120 X 60 CM; 110 1/4 X 47 1/4 X 23 2/3 IN
MARBLE SQUEEZED TUBES 3, 2016
BARDIGLIO MARBLE, POLISHED, VEIN CUT,
CAR LACQUERED PLINTH
68 X 48 X 16.5 CM;
26 3/4 X 19 X 6 1/2 IN
MARBLE SQUEEZED TUBES 6, 2016
BARDIGLIO MARBLE, POLISHED, VEIN CUT, CAR LACQUERED PLINTH
23 X 72 X 26 CM;
9 X 28 1/3 X 10 1/4 IN
MARBLE SQUEEZED TUBES 8, 2016
BARDIGLIO MARBLE, POLISHED, VEIN CUT, CAR LACQUERED PLINTH
16 X 45 X 42 CM; 6 1/3 X 17 3/4 X 16 1/2 IN
 CATCH THE TAIL BY THE TIGER, KÖNIG GALERIE, BERLIN, GERMANY, 2016

CATCH THE TAIL BY THE TIGER, 2016

Created specifically for the singular, re-purposed church, Comte’s ten in-
verted plinths are suspended at different heights from the cavernous ceiling
for what looks like a hanging jungle. On view in their shelf-like interiors
are a selection of Comte’s amorphous wooden sculptures as well as her target
paintings. At first glance, the exhibition might overwhelm with its subtly
spectacular design, but linger a moment, and the manifold nuances, contra-
dictions and paradoxes that animate Comte’s brash and elegant practice begin
to emerge. From the techniques to the materials, not to mention the highly
mediated, self-aware relationship with art history, Comte’s work retains an
almost miraculous structural integrity despite being pulled in several di-
rections at once. Most salient is the strict logic that underpins and governs
a good deal of her decision- making vis-à-vis the human propensity toward
imperfection that characterizes the end result. This logic is evident in the
fact that the spatial arrangement of the plinths is organized according to a
virtual grid as well as the stripes that adorn their surfaces, which have
been burned black with a blow torch, and incised precisely five centimeters
apart, with a chainsaw wielded by the artist’s own hand.

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SCULPTURE OBJECT 49: TWO ZIGZAG CREATES A TOTEM /
SCULPTURE OBJECT 45: LE CROISSANT, 2016
WALNUT, SPRUCE PLINTH, CHAINSAW CARVED, BLACK INK AND OIL
249 X 135 X 30 CM; 98 X 53 1/4 X 11 3/4 IN
SCULPTURE OBJECT 43: ZIGZAG DIVISION / SCULPTURE OBJECT 44: DONUT STANDING
UP / MIDDLE CIRCLE, GRADIENT BLACK GREY BLACK, 2016
WALNUT, SPRUCE PLINTH, CHAINSAW CARVED, BLACK INK AND OIL
498 X 135 X 45 CM; 196 X 53 1/4 X 17 3/4 IN
 ZIGZAG DIVISION, MUSÉE CANTONAL DES BEAUX ARTS, LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND , 2016

ZigZag Division, 2016

In this work she brings a fresh eye to the codes of modernism, popular cul-
ture and the history of art. The result is an electric, immersive, fascinat-
ing space home to all sorts of ways of learning about the architecture and
the collection of the museum to come, of understanding the building process,
and of keeping up to date on the Platform 10 project.
The regular see-sawing of Comte’s zigzag offers a dynamic evocation of the
present in-between situation of the Museum of Fine Arts, Lausanne, as it
pursues its exhibition program at the Palais de Rumine, broadens its scope
and at the same time commits to an imminent future.
There is also a café where you can relax, hang out and leaf through cata-
logues of previous mcb-a exhibitions.

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 BEX & ARTS, TRIENNALE DE LA SCULPTURE SUISSE, BEX, SWITZERLAND , 2014

HAHAHA, 2014
EPICEA, 18 TRUNKS
40 X 6 M, EACH TRUNK 6 M, DIAMETER 40 CM

The concept of Bex & Arts 2014, ‘Emergences’, suggests we reflect on the
relationship between humankind and the contemporary world, on the utopia of
an all-encompassing understanding of the universe, and on the relationship
between the work of art and the ‘whole’ to which it pertains. Thus each work
crystallises the emergence of a poetic and artistic ‘island’.

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 BEX & ARTS, TRIENNALE DE LA SCULPTURE SUISSE, BEX, SWITZERLAND , 2014

TORNADO KIT, 2014

CHAINSAW SCULPTURES, PRINT UNDER ICE
60 X 30 CM; 23 2/3 X 11 3/4 IN

Drawing on the rituals, choreography, traditions and rules of ice hockey,

board games, color field painting and bio-morphic sculpture, Tornado Kit is a
vortex of possibility. Like all of Claudia Comte’s work, patterns of work
and pleasure are mixed. Here, for the first time, we are invited to become a
part of a sculptural form whose boundaries are there only to keep the puck
of our interest in play.

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