Yann Lestrat
Artiste
In 1908, Sigmund Freud identified three character traits found in obsessional neurosis: a love of order, a concern for economy, and stubbornness. Yann Lestrat highlights these issues in an object edited in 200 copies - Nevroz - a shiny white sphere into which a spirit level has been inserted. The tension created between the level - which emphasizes the idea of balance - and the sphere's inability to maintain this balance makes it an object of frustration. The work demonstrates, with undeniable and relentless effectiveness, the illusion of action and the absurdity of seeking absolutes.
Charles Baladier's definition of the obsessional individual helps to highlight one of the aspects that underlies the entire ambivalence of the work. "A master in the art of canceling, displacing, denying, and dampening the most undeniable aggressive intentions, [the obsessional individual] succeeds so well in shielding himself from the slightest desire and responsibility only because, according to him, all of this can only have death as its horizon, death that stares at him with its bitumen eyes." Paradoxically, freed from any functionality, Nevroz appears as a purely aesthetic and seemingly harmless object. Isn't this where the ambiguity and irony of the work lie?
Alexandra Gillet
"My entire body of work as a visual artist revolves around a reflection on the notion of psychological balance, whether individual or collective. This approach began with a series of works developed around the symptomatology specific to obsessional neurosis, serving as an introduction to questioning the real or supposed relationships between art and mental illnesses. Over the course of my creations, the scope has expanded to constructing a perspective applied to observing and understanding the concrete or mental structures that constitute modern societies, including the functioning and effects on individuals of various normative systems in place."
Yann Lestrat