Richard MONNIER

Richard Monnier was born in 1951. He lives and works in Grenoble. 

Before being a sculptor and perhaps even before being an artist, Richard Monnier is first and foremost a researcher. This is why, since 1980, material production has never been a goal in his work. […]

“I am not attached to materials but to the processes of appearance of form,” he declared, when his work still had the appearance of sculpture. Expansion, braiding, cutting, winding, superposition, dispersion... As an extension of the Process Art, Monnier then stuck to simple and repetitive gestures, gestures induced by materials whose choice was itself induced by the observation of particular physical characteristics. Polyurethane foam, cement, chicken wire, hot melt glue, etc. can be used. Without forgetting the material of art history, Monnier drawing for a long time from the 20th century (Brancusi, Max Bill, César, Serra, Hesse...) to turn more recently to the Renaissance, and his work redoubling its invisibility from then on!

Excerpt from Portrait of the Astronomer as a Bowls Player. Richard Monnier and the enlightenment of empiricism, Frédéric Paul, Les Cahiers du MNAM, Center Pompidou, Paris, n°83, 2003.