raphaël faon
bataille d'enfants
sculpture, 36 x 32.5 x 50 cm, 2016
The work is inspired by a public sculpture in bronze disappeared, Bataille d'enfants by Joseph-Louis Enderlin, which represented in a neoclassical style heckling naked children. Created in 1886, it was installed in the Square de Grenelle (now Square Violet) in the 15th arrondissement of Paris until 1942, the year of its destruction following a law of the Vichy regime on the removal of statues and public monuments in copper alloys in order to extract the metals.
The artist duo draws inspiration from archive images to resuscitate this sculpture at the time of its disappearance and liquefaction. They create a fiction from archives, moving from the image to a sculptural three-dimensional form, while imagining how the sculpture has altered during its melting. The artists thus confront this innocent representation with the industrialized techniques of war which led to its destruction.
Finalist project of the MAIF Prize for sculpture 2016.
This video presents the virtual model of the work in the park where the empty base of the sculpture which inspires the project is currently located; the square, like the work, seems to be melting: