Deleted pictures from my private camera
Xavier Mary
(2014)
The three works by Xavier Mary in Heavy Metal Parking Lot demonstrate his penchant for producing sculptures and installations from components of cars, trucks and mass produced objects (such as crash barriers) associated with motorways. In the work “Deleted pictures from my private camera” panels originating from the body of a truck are turned to the wall and become monochromes. By using a formal hybridity of industrial objects often referring to highway elements, Mary relocates specific components and objects turning them into monumental sculptures.
Also featured in the exhibition is Mary’s “Wheel of Pain” a reference to Duchamp’s Bottle Rack (1914). The formal language Mary has devised frequently refers to the modernist canon whilst also elevating the status of mass produced components. The Duchampian logic of Mary’s work is countered by a tendency towards monumentality; his oeuvre has been described by Pieter Vermeulen as “somewhere between the ancient, the brand new and yet-to-come. Past, present and future are entangled in non-linear ways that are a trademark of the contemporary artistic climate.”