Bernard Moninot

The work

La – La – La
1994-2005
45 x 134.5 x 9.5 cm
Screen print on glass and a glass tuning fork

The title refers to the triple repetition of the musical note A (La)
The work consists of three thin glass circles, 40 cm in diameter, placed vertically on a shelf of the same material and leaning against the wall. A tuning fork for the note is placed next to them.
The three discs are screen-printed, giving the impression of the movement produced by the sound waves of the tuning fork.
The artist has immobilized, as in a photograph, something invisible and impossible to physically capture, such as a musical note.

The artist

(Le Fay, Saône-et-Loire, France, 1949)

Bernard Moninot, since his beginnings, has worked around the poetics of inscription, of the trace, of what in other works we have referred to as the presence of the absent. Since the 1980s, he has pursued modes of representation of natural phenomena that are instantaneous, ephemeral, and elusive: patches of sunlight, shadows, wind, sound waves, and dust.
Bernard Moninot creates delicate and rigorous work investigating the invisible trace of gesture and nature, expanding the boundaries of drawing to explore ways of perceiving, remembering, and recording the world.
Bernard Moninot’s work explores perception, gesture, visual memory, and the relationship between nature and abstraction. His work moves between drawing, sculpture, installation, and the use of unusual materials.
Fascinated by the trace of movement, especially invisible or ephemeral gestures (such as wind, sound, or light), he uses devices that record the movements of natural objects, such as branches or threads, to generate automatic or random traces.
Interested in time and processes, many of his works are the result of long or slow creations in which the passage of time, such as sunlight, the movement of a shadow, or the movement of an object, leaves a physical imprint. He often works with the idea of ​​suspended time, latent memory, or ephemeral permanence. Although his work is deeply visual and sensitive, it also has a conceptual component that flirts with the scientific world: instruments, diagrams, and observation of natural phenomena. He often uses materials such as glass, threads, metallic threads, feathers, nets, mirrors, or lightweight objects, creating almost immaterial structures. This use allows him to work with light, shadows, and fragility, creating work that invites us to look more slowly and attentively.