Jean-Luc Parant

The work

Ideal Libraries
2008
67 x 125 x 20 cm
Wax on wood and paper glued to wood

The work consists of two identical shelves, hanging on the wall, one above the other. The upper one is white and the lower one is dark. Two types of objects are randomly placed on the shelves: white, book-shaped pieces covered with writing paper on the upper shelves. On the lower shelves, black rectangles containing text and drawings. There are also spheres or balls of various sizes, also black and white, made from the same materials as the books.
An “ideal library,” as the title of the work suggests, is one that should contain all knowledge: past, present, and future. The symbolism of the colors black and white reinforces the idea of ​​totality.
The spherical form is one that tends to the accumulation of material subjected to intense friction, both on a small scale and in the way celestial bodies have tended to travel through space since the beginning of time.

The artist

(Mégrine, Tunisia, 1944 – Caen, France, 2022)

One of Parant’s major themes throughout his career has been the creation of balls—spheres—of all sizes and volumes, colors, and materials, indicative of the passage of time that accumulates words, ideas, texts, and images in an infinite process; in short, life.
The sphere is a form created by the rigor of physics, the nature of the universe, the parallelograms of shelves and books, corresponding to the human will to contain and put the world at its service.
Parant is also a poet and writer, and all the text fragments we see in this work are the author’s own.