Roger Gremo, “Surgery of Desire”, Metal- Wood- Cloth
“The bodies Roger Gremo builds out of nothing are the reflection of a measured thought on sexual and pathological behaviours, and their definitions and perceptions within society. The anatomic materiality of these human-scale sculptures more broadly questions our individual tolerance regarding various conceptions and uses of the body, but also our collective relationship to sexual identity understood as a social construction.
The connotative as well as practical implications of the materials used are in keeping with this desire to address the problematic of the functional / dysfunctional body. Starting with a skeleton comprised of metal and wood pieces the artist gradually composes various human body parts by using miscellaneous objects, such as secondhand sports clothes and accessories, prostheses and underwear, to name but the most common.
Proceeding like a surgeon, Gremo sews the body parts around the skeleton-up to 10,000 hand-sewn stitches-and thus produces jointed body parts, which are sometimes incomplete, and often very supple, as the flexibility of some of the figures makes evident. However, the postures at times recall forced or at least difficult positions, evoking the situation of a victim under pressure. The repression of the body, in any form, thus also becomes a central issue.” – Aseman Sabet