Hervé Beuze
Born 1970 in Martinique
Lives and works in Martinique
For nearly six years, the outline of the island has become a recurring form in Hervé Beuze's in situ ephemeral installations.
He turns it into a solid shape, a homogeneous block, a silhouette without topographical details, in a unique material, the residue of crushed sugarcane known as bagasse.
So in 2001, in the exhibition Lizin Kann, traces memorielles revisitees, he showed a floor sculpture, a pile of bagasse surrounded by metal (5 m x 3 m). Its title Machinique is an amalgam of words, Machine, Inique (iniquitous), Martinique. According to the artist it stands as a metaphor of the peoples sprung from colonisation, pressed and sucked out like cane pulp (*)
Then in 2003, Hervé Beuze exhibited a new map measuring ten metres in length made of dried cane leaves at the Maison de la Canne, a regional museum dedicated to one plant, one people, one culture, during the 37th international congress of the AICA (International Art Critics Association). The work was placed on polystyrene floating in the middle of a pond. Directly inspired by a document in the museum, a map of the Lands of the Island of Martinique conceded by the Compagnie des Iles, the lords proprietors and the West Indies Company dating from 1671 it is a historical model of the properties of that time. The title of Hervé Beuze's work, Zabitans, referred at the same time to the name given to the inhabitants of the sugar plantations and to the crayfish of the island's rivers. The young artist wanted the work to show how much this ancient division of the land remains at the root of today's occupation of the island's space. He is no longer part of the nostalgic search for a hinterland like the preceding generation of Dumbardon, Anicet, and Fwomaje but seeks to express the historical and political reality of the island (*)
In 2007, the map of Martinique shown at the centre of the Habitation Clement gallery carried once more the title Machinique. These installations have been exhibited twice in former sugar mill, one of which is now a regional museum, and the other a private interpretation centre.
* Hervé Beuze
To find out more, read the article in issue 19 of ARTHEME
Contact: aica-sc@orange.fr
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