FEATURE CATHY DE MONCHAUX
“I ALWAYS THINK
WHEN YOU
MAKE ART YOU’RE
HAVING A
CONVERSATION
WITH YOUR TIME
IN A SENSE”
right: Mise en Scene no. 6 (War Is Not Peace), 2004–6,
Elastoplast, copper wire, nails, pigment, 77 x 92 x 7 cm
facing page, above: Sweetly the Air Flew Overhead Battle no. 3, 2006,
Elastoplast, wire, brass, pigment
facing page, below: Killing Gods in Lost Deserts, 2005–6 (installation view),
copper wire, mesh, gesso, balsa wood and graphite, 330 x 330 x 25 cm.
All photos courtesy Fred, London
approach to art with both sincerity and a wry knowingness: “It’s a it puts you in a mindset to think back to those photographic images.
suspension of disbelief, because how do you pose an object like this Maybe it can trigger the thing that we would otherwise be immune
– which is about sculpture, making, nakedness, religious artefacts – in to,” she suggests. A new series of battle scenes, some of which will be
the twenty-first century without looking really dumb? I’m interested in shown at Fred, recall the work of Paolo Uccello and his claustrophobic
the challenge.” Part of her strategy for dealing with this seems to be the battle scenes rendered through experiments with perspective, as well
way she tackles contemporary subjects with formal references to art as canonical examples like the Parthenon frieze (c. 440 BC) and the
history. “I always think when you make art you’re having a conversation Bayeux tapestry (1077). These framed miniature tableaux depict armies
with your time in a sense. Though very deliberately I make my work to of men and horses engaged in battle. In De Monchaux’s 2006 work
not look like it’s from this time physically,” she says. Sweetly the Air Flew Overhead Battle no. 5 (Fighting Unicorns), magical
While Lust False Empathy is reminiscent in subject, if not form, horses are driven against one another, ridden by soldiers wielding lances
of her earlier work, a new series of sculptures moves in a different and recalling Uccello’s painting The Battle of San Romano (1438–40).
thematic direction. De Monchaux’s conversation has settled on a new Where Uccello’s sturdy steeds are cramped into the picture plane
subject – war – and what it means to be at war in the modern world. by his use of perspective, De Monchaux’s are completely entangled in
She acknowledges that our physical distance from countries like Iraq copper wire, a material she uses again to similarly spectacular effect
and an excess of media that reduces news reports to the status of in the large-scale piece Killing Gods in Lost Deserts (2005–6). This
white noise make it a difficult subject for artists working at an arguably giant wall sculpture, over three square metres, resembles a cloud
further remove than those war correspondents whose message fails when viewed from afar. Up close, caught in its crazed wire mesh, tiny
to impact. “It is real information, and there are real people dying, the human figures are discernible, a reference to those who jumped from
pathetic victims of something we don’t even know about. I suppose the World Trade Center towers on 9/11. Its scale and intricate detail
with making art it’s hard to talk about those things. And yet it seems make it an overwhelming environment, something that De Monchaux
correct to be doing that.” compares to watching television through static; if you pay attention,
One of the ways De Monchaux is handling this dilemma involves information can be gleaned.
referencing the forms art has historically taken when representing war,
to provide a way in for the viewer to think about these issues. “Maybe Cathy De Monchaux’s work is at Fred, London, from 17 May to 1 July
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