The Dissociated Press

Glazed ceramic, 2009 - 2015

This project is part of my translation series, the translation of ideas from one medium to another. With The Dissociated Press I have created a ceramic sculpture following the unprecise memory I had of Neon signs sculptures, widely used in the field of art since the 1960s, by the likes of Bruce Nauman and Joseph Kosuth. This work was also an attempt for me to extend my practice of photography without the medium of photography, by focusing on the mental images I have of the artworks I have been taught with, and bringing them to the real world through my hands, and therefore, through clay. Thinking of neon signs in art for a while and playing with clay gave birth to the series of sculpture The Dissociated Press in my studio at the Rijksakademie, in Amsterdam, in 2009.

An extract of the Catalogue of the Allen & Overy collection, on my ceramic neon sign "Not Necessarily Words":

Not Necessarily Words was the title of Jean-Baptiste Maitre’s first solo exhibition at his Amsterdam gallery Martin van Zomeren. The underlying idea is that thoughts are more important than words. The art committee found the artwork to be suitable for a large law firm where the power of ideas and not its “packaging” should make the difference. Ultimately, you win a case based on content. This content being eloquent is the cherry on the cake.

Bypassers often say: “Shouldn’t that work of art be switched on?” People who view the work have become so conditioned over time that they tend to think of neon lights when they see Not Necessarily Words. Maitre responds to this. He wants to shape our collective subconscious mind and to use the intellectual baggage we have gained from years of being “fed” with neon art by Maitre’s famous colleagues.

These artists’ first experiments date back to the 1940s, but neon only really took off in the 1960s and 1970s with artists such as Joseph Kosuth, Bruce Nauman and Mario Merz. They created neons that were then displayed in museums. After that, those images were used in the media, either literally or as derivatives in the form of neon advertising slogans. Their artworks are therefore engraved in our collective subconscious. That is why we have an immediate and somewhat silly response to a simple piece of ceramic, wondering if it can’t be switched on. In this way, the words Not Necessarily Words can also be read as follows: it is about the difference between what it says and what can be read. You’re looking at words, but these are also a representation of our collective memory, full of images and experiences.

There is a strong tendency to take everything put in front of us for granted or even to consider it to be true. We take one look at Not Necessarily Words and we see a text instead of a designed work of art. The sentence itself dominates our thoughts and the form has become subordinate to the words. Through Not Necessarily Words, the artist confronts us with our ingrained viewing and thinking patterns.