Simon Bonneau

Simon Bonneau lives and works in Marseille (FR)

On the Matter of Things.

“The attention we give to things has nothing to do with the commitment made to them. One must not love things too much, or else they invade you, surprise you when you least expect it; at any moment, they arrive without warning… A modification made to things does not solely engage the responsibility of the author of the act but also that of the individual who will understand the modified thing as a primary thing. It must be understood that any previously modified thing does not necessarily appear as such when received visually.
To separate oneself from things, even temporarily, can appear beneficial in terms of the average number of things that a normally constituted subject can ‘clinically’ tolerate.
As for the quality of things, this depends not only on its origin (essentially geographical) but also on its destination. That is to say, if the said thing is destined to be expatriated from its place of origin and likewise for a thing that moves of its own accord, the act of becoming a migrant increases its chances of losing quality. However, there are different types of quality: material quality, factual quality, etc. (note that, for the reasons stated earlier, time is not a quality criterion). An enumeration of all possible qualities is impossible to formulate, as it also depends on the nature of the thing’s destination.
For every thing has, of course, a destination, whether it wants it or not, and it is this destination that will have the final say on quality. This is why a thing that is rich in theory may appear very poor in the eyes (and this is essential) of its recipient.
Wanting to make things can pose several kinds of problems. Either someone else is already making them, perhaps better, and the market is already saturated, or there is no demand for the made thing, in which case we are forced to create a stock of things that are more or less difficult to sell and that, in any case, will become burdensome. A solution exists: to create a demand for a specific thing in order to move the stock. Of course, this is by no means an easy task, and not everyone can create a market by their mere will. Then comes the idea of getting rid of it for nothing, but here lies another problem…”

Simon Bonneau, La tête en vrac, 2002/2003

Simon Bonneau’s work in on display during the exhibition Un peu plus à l’ouest, 2003.