Volume 1

FORMA, “the first image” Rainier Lericolais's taste for technical and aesthetic experimentation, and for play on words in his titles, goes hand in hand with an enduring determination to bring forth new images. Openness is the key: rooted in traditional media and shot through with references to the history of art, cinema or music, each work is at the same time subjected to a form of chance “conditioned” by its specific technical process. But as Julie Ramos emphasises in this book, while the art of “concealment of the medium” reaches its apogee here, this is because the result obtained – especially via physical contact – always has a “mental” image as its starting point.
Lericolais's exhibition at the Domaine départemental de Chamarande Centre for Contemporary Art recounts a history of these “processes open to the unpredictable”, of fering the visitor the chance to sample all their visual attributes. In addition, more personal pieces like the “cabinet of curiosities” and the artist's first animated film provide a window onto the range of his sources of inspiration.
The idea of a book covering an oeuvre begun more than fifteen years ago was born out of this experience of the exhibition; and the quality of the texts and images marks a resolve to testify to the place Rainier Lericolais occupies in the art of today.
Judith Quentel