DS GALERIE, Paris
Xolo Cuintle
1450°C
Somewhere between Paris and Marseille, approximately around the Isère region, the cement factories and the cornfields cohabit.
Beside being a massive industry as well as concrete, corn farming share similarities with concrete in its fabrication process. Cement manufacturing techniques borrow directly from the ones for transforming cereal into flour. Giant rotating grindstones are used to grind limestone, argil and sand into a dust called ‘raw flour’ which is then stocked into big silos.
The geographic location as well as the similarities between corn and cement inspired an installation of this moving countryside from the perspective of a window. Through the fleeting view from the window of any means of transportation, the eye synthesizes the infinite rows of maize into blocks which appear industrially calibrated. In the era of drought, the environment inspired the depiction of an unfulfilling inert harvest. This landscape downscaled to the format of a booth, becomes an architecture in which is applied ornamental pattern of corn plants. As the installation takes the dimensions of the dioramas, the time frame becomes ambiguous as we ask ourselves if what we are looking at is an event of the past, a relevant present or upcoming catastrophe.
