Installation view Clémence de La Tour du Pin at April in Paris, Aerdenhout. Photo: Fabian Landewee
Ghostly umbrellas – Clémence de La Tour du Pin at April in Paris, Aerdenhout
Two years ago, Clémence de La Tour du Pin started working on a wide variety of works made from and with umbrellas and sunshades. The series has been exhibited in various compositions and locations, and is currently on view at gallery April in Paris in Aerdenhout.
Three silken parasols appear behind spacious windows. One of them is sliced open. The series Sunshades for an expanded field (2022) is made by Clémence de La Tour du Pin and was first exhibited two years ago at a gallery in Los Angeles called Smart Objects. Currently it is on view at April in Paris, the gallery that Evi Vingerling and Maurice van Valen opened in their own home near the centre of Aerdenhout.
The artist found the umbrellas in the French countryside, in the garden of someone who clears old furniture from the houses of people that have passed away. She displayed the umbrellas on the wall after slightly altering them to emphasize the dust they gathered and the damage done to them by years of changing weather conditions and insects. Gradually, she explains, the umbrellas ‘became homes for parasites’.[1] De La Tour du Pin highlighted the centre of the parasols and tipped them with gold leaf. ‘I like how the metal catches the light’, she writes as we discuss the materials she used for this work.
Notions of borders, protection, vulnerability and inheritance are of great importance to De La Tour du Pin. She tells me about the long history of textile production that marks the Auvergne-Rhône Alpes region in France. This is also where the silken umbrellas were made. They were possibly produces for children to signal their high social status. Wanting to open up the sunshades of these histories, De La Tour du Pin decided to cut the parasols open. With this gesture, it seems she is inviting the ghosts of the past to enter the exhibition room.
De La Tour du Pin decided to cut the parasols open, inviting the ghosts of the past to enter the exhibition room
According to Jennifer Teets, who curated an earlier exhibition in Paris titled Présentations, which also featured these umbrellas, reading the work of cultural theorist Avery Gordon may help us develop a deeper understanding of the notion of the past as something that haunts the present. Reading Gordon’s book Ghostly Matters (2008), I am struck by one quote in particular:
‘Somewhere between . . . the Actual and the Imaginary . . . ghosts might enter . . . without affrighting us. It would be too much in keeping with the scene to excite surprise, were we to look about us and discover a form, beloved, but gone hence, now sitting quietly in a streak of this magic moonshine, with an aspect that would make us doubt whether it had returned from afar, or had never once stirred from our fireside.’ [1]
Gordon highlights how historical social forces continue to control present life. Looking at the works of De La Tour du Pin, I also feel as if something could arise out of the umbrellas at any time; as if lifting these dusty, somewhat bent umbrellas from the wall would mean to expose the ghosts that are hidden inside. I imagine the ghosts not to be frightening, but rather as enriching. The artist points out to me how the umbrella’s fabric is attached to its ribs. Installing the umbrellas vertically causes the fabric to fold and drape, allowing the umbrella to hover slightly off the wall. The works seem soft and tactile, yet they also appear fragile, as if the slightest gust of wind could send them flying.
When De La Tour du Pin finds umbrellas that are too damaged to be used in one piece, she deconstructs them, reusing and recycling only certain parts. The ribs, for example, become the X-structure in a series of smaller box-shaped sculptures. The surface of the Untitled (Parchment) series has an almost sheeplike feel. De La Tour du Pin tells me this skin is inspired by the parchment texture made with traditional oil techniques used in the beginning of the twentieth century to cover furniture and interiors. De La Tour du Pin discovered this technique while studying at the Van Der Kelen School of decorative painting in Brussels.
Historically, parchment is used to convey written information but here it takes on a protective role. Like the animal skin and organs it is made from, it protects what is hidden inside. The boxes hold repurposed fragments of older paintings made by the artist, featuring scenes from the everyday like bustling street corners or trains. Some boxes remain closed, concealing what is hidden inside, only vague tones of colour shine through the skin.
At April in Paris, De La Tour du Pin’s sculptures are exhibited next to works by nineteenth century painter Adolphe Monticelli, who was a great but lesser known source of inspiration to Vincent van Gogh. His works are layered, depicting romantic sceneries and rich bouquets blossoming with texture and colour.
April in Paris was founded by lawyer Maurice van Valen and artist Evi Vingerling, and is located in the living room of their house in Aerdenhout. When I ask Vingerling if she and Van Valen are regular collectors of contemporary art, she nods enthusiastically: ‘We have plenty of work by young artists’, she says. ‘But they belong to our private collection. We don’t want to treat contemporary works as commodities which is why we often have works on consignment. This means that if the works by De La Tour Du Pin are not sold within a year, we simply return them to the artist.’
The works seem soft and tactile, yet they also appear fragile, as if the slightest gust of wind could send them flying
The gallery’s visitors mostly consist of friends of the founders, who often attend the openings. ‘A large part of the buyers find us online,’ Vingerling says. ‘That’s why our website is an important extension of the exhibitions. We find it is important to invest in detailed documentation to show the art works as they are, including any possible damage.’
I ask her how it is to live among these artworks. ‘I have the time to trace each brush stroke of the paintings,’ she says, ‘as if I can almost feel the moment at which Monticelli has made them. Clémence’s work, on the other hand, upholds a certain mystery that I find fascinating and attractive. I never have the feeling that I can completely grasp them, in the same way that the works exhibited here never truly belong to us. They are always in transit. It reminds me that works of art have a rich history and will most likely outlive us. We are only a small part of their lives.’
Monticelli | Clémence de La Tour du Pin can be visited by appointment until the 26th of February 2023 at April in Paris, Aerdenhout.
[1] Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (1850) p. 31, in Avery Gordon, Ghostly Matters (1976) p. 138
Emma Wiersma
is a writer and an artist