Published as commentary on new acquisitions of the FRAC Grand Large collection, Dunkerque, 2026.
Clemence de la Tour du Pin has been primarily trained in Applied Arts at the École Boulle, Paris and the School of Art, Architecture & Design, London. She also pursued specialized studies in decorative painting at the Van der Kelen–Logelain Institute in Brussels. She has presented solo exhibitions at Aléa, Paris (2025), and at Femtenesse Gallery (2021), and has participated in international group exhibitions at the Blaffer Art Museum in Houston and the CAPC in Bordeaux (both in 2023).
The state of things that Clemence de la Tour du Pin is putting on display in exhibitions seems rather hard to define. One encounters pieces of wood, loose threads or rags, and mundane objects such as umbrellas—often in torn or fragmented form. Artefacts or fragments that might have been used by many hands, are even used too much to be in use anymore. Or have respective traces been skillfully produced by the artist, considering that some material has even been carefully arranged in display boxes?
Untitled, a half-open yet partially broken umbrella, embodies this oscillation. It carries visible signs of use while also exhibiting subtle sculptural interventions. Collected by the artist as discarded debris in the vicinity of her hometown Roanne, the umbrella has been partially dusted with gold in a subsequent artistic process. Suspended against an exhibition wall, it appears simultaneously as a found object and a transformed sculpture. In contrast to the promise of perfection associated with industrial fabrication, de la Tour du Pin foregrounds the provisional, fragile qualities of respective materials. Their shape resembles the repetitive logic of large-scale supply-chains while also pointing to physical vulnerability – and, not least, to a human desire to design and craft. By applying gold to an obsolete artefact, the sculptural gesture offers a reflection on the ambivalent transformations of post-industrial regions—such as Roanne with its former textile-umbrella industry, and many others around the world.
Work
Untitled, 2022
Umbrella, gold 22 carat
98 x 91 x 30 cm
Selected Bibliography
Jennifer Teets (ed.), Intimate Confession is a Project, Los Angeles: Inventory Press & Blaffer Art Museum 2025