Xolo Cuintle (Romy Texier & Valentin Vie Binet) at DS Galerie, Paris March 23 — May 06, 2023
Each species is a patchwork of parts taken from other species. We, the living species, have never stopped exchanging parts, lines and organs”¹.
For the gallery’s signature space, Le salon, artist duo Xolo Cuintle presents “1 and 1 is 3”, a series of bi-composite concrete and ceramic bas-reliefs. These diachronic botanical boards illustrate how two co-dependent lives synchronize around a single cycle to the point of forming a single body. While the Jay (Garrulus glandarius), a small bird, buries the seeds of the Beech Tree (Fagus sylvatica) simultaneously sowing the tree whilst storing provisions for the winter, the Chiastocheta (Chiastocheta), a type of fly, finds its nest in the Globe Flower (Trollius europaeus) to lay its larvae and pollinate the flower at the same time. All these organic gears bear witness to the precarious reproductive cycle at the root of our ecosystem. The promiscuity of these symbiotic lives inspires the duo to create a new iconographic and ornamental repertoire. These combinations of flora and fauna creates a new typology of hybrid species: Garrulus Fagus, Chiastocheta Europaeus, Cypripedium Vatia, Phengaris Vulgaris…
1. Translated from « Chacune des espèces est un patchwork de morceaux prélevés sur d’autres espèces. Nous, les espèces vivantes, n’avons jamais cessé de nous échanger des pièces, des lignes, des organes », Emanuèle Coccia, Métamorphoses, Payot & Rivages, Paris, 2020, p.14-15
1 and 1 is 3 Xolo Cuintle (Romy Texier & Valentin Vie Binet)
DS Galerie, Paris March 23 — May 06, 2023
Photography: Valentin Vie Binet
Artist duo Romy Texier and Valentin Vie Binet go by the collective title Xolo Cuintle, producing works that sit somewhere between furniture, sculpture, sets and domestic spaces. Assembled from concrete, steel and wood, the artists present petrified scenes; timeless, abandoned spaces. Producing complete domestic settings, where each room is a discreet space, their works are re-interpreted, re-updated, and re-assembled; each set is organized around furniture and decorative objects from all eras. Families of styles and treatments, dissonances coexist and confront each other. Between noble materials and substitutes, objects are at once completed and rough. These composite assemblages aim for a form of harmony that is embodied through the successive montage of a series of living-room settings.