Radical Romance is a 6-month project by Floryan Varennes under the aegis of the Fondation des Artistes at the Collectif Bonus in France. Through a methodology of formal and historical research, inherited from Arts & Crafts, fantasy and new technologies, Floryan Varennes roots his work in a perspective that transcends binarisms. Techniques and know-how bring together two antinomic temporalities (past and future), reviving an archaic past through the back-and-forth between historical artefacts and scientific knowledge, in a meticulous, almost clinical articulation. Following his 6-month residency, Floryan Varennes is proposing a new installation made up of several sculptures. On the one hand, two new Matriarchs displayed in tension, in a cybernetic parade of love, and on the other a futuristic tapestry stuffed with medicinal lavender.

First of all, the Matriarches create a dialectic of love by playing on echoes and reflections. Assembling muzzles, tubes, medical pvc, stainless steel clips, rivets and other medical fastenings, the two works create an ambiguous encounter between coercion and devotion, love and repulsion. All transparent, these armoured spectral entities are equipped with hindrances and links that protect, while at the same time subjugating. They seduce as fascinating, almost ethereal, suspended sculptures that the metal calls to order. Far from an aestheticisation of violence, the transparency of the Matriarches is a reference to vulnerability, but also to the threat that can be seen in the daily violence of our hyper-controlled societies.

Translated into minimalist forms, Cortex is a massive sculpture representing a futuristic tapestry, symmetrically organised and structured within a fluctuating container. Composed of rhombic visual tropes, it articulates riveted medical pvc modules saturated with dried medicinal lavender. These double-sheeted rhombuses form an openwork framework, the shapes of which have been extrapolated from medieval brigandine protections. In the heart of these tropes, lavender is both preserved and smothered – it cannot be inhaled, only seen. Lavender is then used as stuffing. Floryan Varennes’ favourite flower, lavender refers to the sphere of care and support. This futuristic tapestry (in the form of a rampart or gateway) blends several intertwined concepts: protection, conservation but also safeguarding, and plays on a synaesthetic visual and olfactory ambiguity. More than ever, Floryan Varennes assumes the idea that care, in the form of solicitation, love and healing, can become a powerful act of resistance.

— Sam Duchene