In France I always practiced two professions side-by-side, one as an maker of documentary videos for art and corporate communications, the other as an artist (photography, sculpture and drawing). In the mid-1990s, after moving with my family to Switzerland, I sought to express myself in the medium that seemed to suit me best, so I stopped making commissioned films in order to devote all my time to my artistic work. In response to questions about my past life I started – with perseverance – to model small heads in terra cotta in an endeavour to become better acquainted with myself or just to capture a moment of life. This was not to imprison or subjugate this instant but to cherish it in the palm of my hand out of love and survival instinct. The heads are not portraits of men and women but friendly companions, protective talismans, amiable presences in a world that sometimes slips from our grasp. To date, I have crafted over a thousand heads, no larger than an egg. This infinite ensemble of heads is a way of saying Yes to the world, to all living beings, to the fate imparted to everyone to consent to the immense mystery of existence beyond all ugliness and beauty, injustice and chance. These little heads have become the central nucleus of my work.
I reproduce them in different materials such as bronze, glass or silicon, and assemble large numbers of them in installations of varying dimensions. I stage them inside small boxes, as though one were called upon to suspend time by enclosing it among commonplace objects within a sealed, protected and surreal environment. Occasionally the little heads also appear in my drawings. I cover the paper with interior necessity, day after day and as an automatic reflex, similar to how others write their journals. I fathom my own identity, my strength, my fears and my vulnerability without volition, as an automatic response, often in mockery at the world around us.
Berlin, November 2019
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Patricia Dreyfus, Born in Dakar, Senegal, 1951
1982 - 1984
Apprenticeship at studio Gregory Mazurovsky, Centre Américain and Académie de la Grande Chaumière, Paris
1972 - 1992
Documentary film in the range of art, music and economy
1992 - 2012
Lives and works as an artist in Basel
Since 2012
Lives and works in Berlin
Solo exhibitions (selection)
2019
lettre à moi-même, Galerie Mesmerrahmen, Basel - CH
2012
HumanKapital, Häuser und Asche, Kunstverein Ebersberg, DE
2012
Weggefährten, Kunstverein Ottobrunn, DE
2012
Insomnia, Kunsthaus Norden, DE
2011
Insomnia, M54, Basel, CH
2010
Traces/Spuren, Karmeliterkirche, Wiener Neustadt, AT
2009
War Memories Reinvented, QCC Gallery, New York, USA
Group exhibitions (selection)
2018
Das kleine Format, Atelierhof-Kreuzberg, Berlin, DE
2016
Kölner Liste , Cologne, DE
2013
Wer bist du?, Museum Schwarzenberg, DE
2013
Umspann ZENTRALE, Galerie G11, Berlin, DE
2013
Kauf mich, Schwartzsche Villa Galerie, Berlin, DE
2011
Remise en Jeu, Kunsthalle Mulhouse, FR
2010
Regionale, Fabrik culture, Hégenheim, FR
2009
Regionale, Kunsthalle, Basel, CH
Art and documentary film
« Aux sources du monde arabe », 1989, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris
« La rencontre au sommet » 1987, Award for Best Documentary Film, Biarritz Film Festival in France
« L’homme réparé », 1986, Centre de la Villette, Paris
« Roberto Matta »,1984
« Les Iles flottantes de Boris Tissot », 1983, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
« Le rêve d’Aurélie », 1983
« La Vie et l’Oeuvre de Shirley Goldfarb », 1982, Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris and Musée de Pontoise
Bibliographie
2017
Die imaginäre Insel (Schulz und Schulz)
2011
Insomnia (Benteli)
2004
Obstinate Creation (Linsenmann AG)
1996
Signes de têtes / Headsign (Mendiboure)