Laurent Tixador

Laurent Tixador was born in 1965 in Colmar (FR), he lives and works in Nantes (FR)

Since 2001, Laurent Tixador has participated regularly in solo and group exhibitions in France and abroad (CAPC, MAC Marseille, Espace Paul Ricard, Confort Moderne, Frac Réunion, Belleville Biennale 2014…). In 2013, he received the COAL Art and Environment Prize.

Laurent Tixador is an artist of bricolage and experimentation in the broadest sense. Driven by a desire to work as much as possible with what his immediate surroundings provide—what he likes to call “opportunistic material”—he is committed to using simple technologies. Success is not the goal here; rather, the aim is to build a corpus of possibilities, to test both an architectural gesture and the artist’s ability to adapt to unknown conditions.

Tixador’s projects are also rooted in movement; travel—usually on foot—is part of this immediate engagement with the environment. The performative act of walking becomes a work in itself, as does its narrative. The blog he regularly updates takes us step by step through his progress or stagnation. This logbook is complemented by a series of bottles containing miniature models of the experiences he has lived (echoing the maritime aesthetic of travel souvenirs), small objects sculpted along the way, or acts of writing and drawing made on discarded materials he collects during his journey.

At a time when ecological and social issues are an unavoidable part of daily life, Laurent Tixador quietly tests an economy of salvage and plays with the materials he finds in situ.

Laurent Tixador’s work in on display during the exhibition Véhicule, 2002.