15.05.22-30.10.22

Thomas Bonny

ENTRANCE VIA THE LARGE DOOR

To mark International Museum Day on 15 May 2022, Yusuké Y. Offhause is inaugurating his museum inside our institution with a monographic exhibition by Thomas Bonny (Switzerland, 1975), designed specifically for the venue and entitled:
ENTRANCE
VIA THE
LARGE
DOOR
Thomas Bonny’s polymorphous artistic practice is freely structured into series, which he produces either with drawing and painting or through sculpture and, as in this instance, ceramics. The artist develops creative processes based on real-life elements that trigger various lines of work. In the Offhause Museum, the body of ceramic sculptures is installed on mobile scaffolding, built progressively on a nomadic imaginary and resonating like a monumental artwork, in close dialogue with the museum’s architecture.

Ground floor
Visitors are greeted by two disproportionate atomisers. These ceramic sculptures evoke a modest but essential tool for ceramists. The artist gives them a sculptural dimension by covering them with beautiful enamelled glazing.
In the background is a ceramic door, which appears small to the spectator but is large on the scale of the museum. It is engraved with the inscription: DO NOT FEEL SMALLER THAN YOU ARE. This invitation, with its reference to Lewis Carroll, propels the viewer into a poetic-philosophical dimension.

1st floor
The floor here is covered with a dust raster screen-print. An ensemble of ceramics litters this surface in a chaotic way in an atmosphere of deconstruction, of a transitory state.

2nd floor
The "Disconnected Pieces" installation has been created by dabbing with the end of an internet cable. The act of "connection" is turned here into a creative process.

3rd floor
Scaffolding fills the space, traversing the ceiling and ending with panel elements bearing subtle abstract markings. The installation meets the architectural reality of the museum and transcends the institutional context.