Tarik Kiswanson
Tarik Kiswanson is an Astérides Resident in 2014. The archives of Triangle-Astérides do not allow for the determination of the exact dates or the duration of this residency in 2014.
“My work bears witness to the in-between zones of thought—it captures a state of entre-deux where cultures and identities intersect, where art and design converge, where East meets West. It is a body of work that draws its dynamism from both my real and imagined experience of exile.” – Tarik Kiswanson
A graduate with honors from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris in 2014—after earlier studies in art and design, then visual arts at Central Saint Martins in London—Tarik Kiswanson creates open-form works, each harboring a kinetic potential: a shape that multiplies, a structure that quivers at the slightest touch. Sometimes described as a “slippage,” other times as an “overlap,” this perpetual movement—suspended in and determined by the exhibition context—manifests the uncertainty that is inherent to all perception.
Ambiguous objects, his works blur the boundaries between art and design, between functional and non-functional, thereby pointing to the relativity of all classification systems. To these perceptual ambiguities, Kiswanson adds a reflection on transculturation and constructed borders, driven by a desire to “bring together things, fields, continents.” In the words of Édouard Glissant, Tarik Kiswanson develops the sculptural counterpart to an “archipelagic thought” of hybridity: a sharp, razor’s-edge thinking, constantly teetering, but whose impact precisely lies in its versatility.
Text by Ingrid Luquet-Gad, August 2014
Translation: Triangle-Astérides
