Backflip dans un hangar
2006
varnished wood, steel, reinforced concrete, blue-jeans
Unique
A pedestal made of varnished wood in the shape of a guitar box supports a motorcycle mudguard on which some sort of steel crystals, matt or polished, seem to be growing, as though the mudguard had landed on an extraterrestrial planet. Several supple, undulating flames made of jeans snake from the body of guitar, contaminating the ground and scaling the walls.
Cascais
2008
lead, earth, cement, paint, fern
180 x 1000 centimeters
Unique
The sinuous, polymorphous form of the sculpture ‘Cascais' seems to arch into the ground. One side is flanked by attenuating stripes while the other presents an expanse of white. The two sides are joined by an earth-coloured, textured lead hollow, which accommodates a living fern. The name ‘Cascais' comes from the eponymous town, located on the Portuguese coast near Lisbon. Cascais is a touristy town but is also known for its proximity to a renowned motorcycle track. The sculpture's stripes echo motorcycle helmet motifs, lending the curve an optical speed. This seems to encourage the movement of the spectator, all the more so as the sculpture offers a different view from every angle. In following the contours of the stripes, the spectator is confronted with either a skate ramp-like arc, or a white curve which evokes the archetypal architecture of touristy towns like Cascais. Following the example of Antti Lovag – designer of the Château Bulles at Théoule-sur-mer – ‘Cascais's' organic silhouette also sustains a living being. The green foliage of the fern in the centre needs daily sustenance. This plant grows between the formal, mechanical speed of motorbikes and the quintessential leisure of coastal towns – it seems to exist within the fast pace of modern life.
Castello on the Block
2007
resin, aluminium, wood, paint
75 x 230 centimeters
Unique
Mixing high-brow with low-brow and hybridizing cultural references from various origins, "Castello on the Block" reinterprets the Japanese art of suiseki, where purists collect stones with remarkable shapes, preferably black, and arrange them in miniature landscapes set on wooden trays. "Castello on the Block" is a giant suiseki; in other words, a total incongruity. The nobleness and sublimity of nature in the suiseki are coarsened, both by the type of the materials used (resin, aluminium) and by the way they are treated (streamlining appropriate for a car body, the insertion of what appears to be part of a low wall).
Fugazi
2007
resin, steel, leather, paint
70 x 590 centimeters
Unique
In "Fugazi", several chrome steel plates have been placed on the ground, suggesting the stylised profile of a giant, somewhat strange rabbit: one of his ears, pink and black, made by a leatherworker in the style of a luxury car seat, is in the place of the tail; shards of trunks, bones and wood jut from the eye; from the base of this blazing stump spreads a cameo of green emerald crystals. Elisabeth Wettervald
Goodbye Sunny Dreams
2006
wood, aluminium, wrought iron, ceramic, paint
178 x 400 centimeters
Unique
Wilfrid Almendra's sculptures consist of elements carried to the threshold of surrealism. "Goodbye Sunny Dreams" betrays a baroque sensibility. A sort of customized rock ‘n' roll Viking vessel made of slender aluminium sheets sits on top of a wooden base, topped with a wrought iron fixture and studded with ceramic spheres.
Grand Opus
2009
130 x 235 centimeters
Unique
In Grand Opus, Wilfrid ALMENDRA questions the suburban destiny of modernist utopia. He draws his inspiration from the work of French dandy architect Roger LE FLANCHEC, a follower of Le Corbusier active in Brittany during the 60's and 70's, who aimed at combining modernism with regionalism, particularly through the use of vernacular materials. Grand Opus recalls the facade of a villa by LE FLANCHEC, covered with slabs of stone, some of which drawing discrete minimal perspectives. ALMENDRA translates it into a slope made of slabs of slate, simultaneously harmonious and testing the limits of balance; the slope is perforated by an agave, as a symbol of chic exoticism frequently found in the patios of modern bourgeois villas.
La La Land
2007
wood, mélaminé, clarkfoarm, lead, varnish
90 x 10 centimeters
Unique
Inspired by the makila, a traditional walking pole from the Landes region that comprises a hidden blade inside, La La Land is a whimsical hybrid evoking both a sport accessory – its handle recalls the one of a tennis racket – and a weapon. Partly made of lead, its weight precludes any use while making it even more dangerous, broadening the paradoxical quality of this decorative object. Reminiscent of the shape of an animal leg and borrowing its title from a pop music hit, it belongs both to nature and culture, playfulness and aggression.
Le Flamboyant
2008
wood, aluminium, steel, leather, clarkfoam, paint, marker, varnish
200 x 160 centimeters
Unique
Flamboyant is a hybrid of a seahorse and a hummingbird transposed onto an imposing, muscular and sensual mass of wood. Its base is covered by aluminium plates and its crown is topped with a golden lamb leather mane. The addition of a pair of diminutive wings undermines Flamboyant's monumental presence.
Mimosa
2006
wood, aluminium, steel
150 x 380 centimeters
Unique
"Mimosa" (2006) is one of Almendra's pieces that subtly imbricates industrial references and techniques with organic elements. Two steel tubes protrude from an impressive wooden cylindrical structure, varnished and veined like lizard's skin (or perhaps the surface of an enormous tire). The first one, rectilinear and oblique, turns upward like the muffler stolen off a car; the other one, with a more organic form, flattens on the ground like a dead tree trunk.
New Babylon
2009
plaster, wood, earth, stainless steel, slate, steel, shanty mahogany, silicone, cypress
293 x 544 centimeters
Unique
'New Babylon' takes as a starting point the utopian, anti-capitalist project of the same name, planned in the 1960s by Constant NIEUWENHUYS; the Dutch Situationist artist/architect imagined a social city, built in height, perched above ground, leaving the bourgeois metropolis below. Wilfrid ALMENDRA's 'New Babylon' consists of a floating sculpture, covered with thick plaster and marquetery; at the bottom lies a large white pedestal, with surfaces of different heights, shaped after the floor plan of a standard suburban house. Planted in the pedestal, a cypress links the lower part, ie reality, with the upper part, ie the utopia. With a strong sense of empathy, Wilfrid ALMENDRA explores that same space between utopia and reality, the way things were planned and the way they end up being; in other words, the way human beings get along with their environment and life – a way of questionning humanity through architecture.
Num doce balanço caminho do mar
2007
wood, aluminium, steel, leather, clarkfoam, paint, marker, varnish
540 x 230 centimeters
Unique
Installation at Le Jardin des Tuileries, Paris "Num doce balanço caminho do mar" is a sculpture in the form of a hang-glider. Its large triangular surface is covered with tiles and framed in painted wood. Docked under one of the slightly convex wings, a vertical steel chrome tube supports the structure in its oblique tilt. Two thinner chrome poles branch out of this tube, one grounding the sculpture, the other touching the underside of a wing, seeming to maintain the sculpture's precarious balance.
N°0. Pondichérry...Mahalapuram
2008
stainless steel, ceramic, chromo
30 x 26 centimeters
Unique
Reproducing the structure of a motorcycle helmet with stainless steel, shaped like the objects sold to tourists on the markets in Africa, Wilfrid ALMENDRA's sculpture necessitates a complex production process due to the thickness and quality of the metal. A drawing has been printed on its ceramic eye shield, from a series the artist produced by putting a sheet of paper on his knees and letting the pencil go while driving his car. This sculpture is a new hybrid between the road folklore, high technologies and the Japanese-style poetry of drawing. Each helmet is entitled after the names of the two cities linked up by car while the drawing was in progress, evoking both the artist's mental landscape and the real one.
Reconstruction of a Monument I
2011
aluminium, glass, concrete
230 x 113 centimeters
Unique
Wilfrid ALMENDRA confronts utopian forms of Dutch artist Constant NIEUWENHUYS' New Babylon project with those of suburban neighborhoods and industrial areas. New Babylon, project developed by Constant NIEUWENHUIS (1920-2005) from 1954, aimed at building a situationist city – socially concerned, built in height, freed from the ground, a place of self-fulfillment for its inhabitants. 'Monument for Reconstruction' is a reactivation of the only structure from that same New Babylon project that was actually built. The original structure, titled 'Monument for Reconstruction', a complex and colorful web of metal beams and wood surfaces, was erected in 1955 in Rotterdam, on the occasion of the E55 Energy Expo, in a kids playground, but was demolished shortly after. Wilfrid ALMENDRA's 'Reconstruction of a Monument', takes after the shape of Constant's structure, replacing the metal beams of the original sculpture with recycled materials coming from the suburban environments of La Faute-sur-mer, destroyed by the tempest Xynthia matching Constant's vertical utopia with its opposite: nowadays crashed utopia.
Reconstruction of a Monument II
2011
aluminium, concrete, altuglas
360 x 160 centimeters
Unique
Wilfrid ALMENDRA confronts utopian forms of Dutch artist Constant NIEUWENHUYS' New Babylon project with those of suburban neighborhoods and industrial areas. New Babylon, project developed by Constant NIEUWENHUIS (1920-2005) from 1954, aimed at building a situationist city – socially concerned, built in height, freed from the ground, a place of self-fulfillment for its inhabitants. Monument for Reconstruction is a reactivation of the only structure from that same New Babylon project that was actually built. The original structure, titled Monument for Reconstruction, a complex and colorful web of metal beams and wood surfaces, was erected in 1955 in Rotterdam, on the occasion of the E55 Energy Expo, in a kids playground, but was demolished shortly after. Wilfrid ALMENDRA's Reconstruction of a Monument, takes after the shape of Constant's structure, replacing the metal beams of the original sculpture with recycled materials coming from the suburban environments of La Faute-sur-mer, destroyed by the tempest Xynthia matching Constant's vertical utopia with its opposite: nowadays crashed utopia.
Untitled (N°1-12)
2008
stainless steel, ceramic, chromo
11.8 x 9.8 pouces
Unique
Reproducing the structure of a motorcycle helmet with stainless steel, shaped like the objects sold to tourists on the markets in Africa, Wilfrid ALMENDRA's sculpture necessitates a complex production process due to the thickness and quality of the metal. A drawing has been printed on its ceramic eye shield, from a series the artist produced by putting a sheet of paper on his knees and letting the pencil go while driving his car. This sculpture is a new hybrid between the road folklore, high technologies and the Japanese-style poetry of drawing. Each helmet is entitled after the names of the two cities linked up by car while the drawing was in progress, evoking both the artist's mental landscape and the real one.
VLZ310
2005
wood, steel, gelcoat, ceramics, paint
50 x 80 centimeters
Unique
In the work of Wilfrid Almendra, the landscape and the ornamental arrangements of suburban gardens are endowed as objects actually worthy of interest. "VLZ310" (2004) assembles the elements of the entrance to a virtual porch, chosen by the artist to function metonymically. Three steps of a stoop or a garden are edged by a low wall on which has been placed, much as one would place a flower pot, a disproportionately large ceramic pineapple.
While Waiting for the Revolution
2010
concrete, wood, mahogany wood stain, silicone
161 x 48 centimeters
Unique
In the almost twin sculptures While Waiting for a Revolution (2010) Wilfrid ALMENDRA confronts utopian forms of Dutch artist Constant NIEUWENHUYS' New Babylon project with those of suburban neighbourhoods and industrial areas. Each sculpture consists of a triangular plinth – triangles being a frequent form for Constant, linked to nomadism –, topped by a shape with a curving rim. One of the pedestals is made of boards recycled from palettes, bearing the stigma of an industrial process, the sanding of metallic parts: veins of wood are ploughed, and residues of paint have printed its surface; the other plinth, made of concrete, has been casted with the same boards, that have left their marks in negative. The shape on each pedestal takes that of a very sculptural water tower, who caught the artist's eye very early on; being the only construction in a provincial town to challenge the usual architectural typologies, it recalls observatories planned by Constant; the sculpture on the concrete plinth is covered with a marquetry of wood, as the outside of a formwork, whereas the other, on the wooden pedestal is made of cast concrete. Wilfrid ALMENDRA therefore plays on the notion of positive / negative, and the notion of series, very central in Constant's work.
Yellow River
2011
inox, concrete, wood
500 x 500 centimeters
The work "Yellow River" is a sculpture composed of 36 elements of cased concrete in various shapes and sizes but all the same height, covered for the most part with polished stainless steel mirror plates and illuminated by four powerful spotlights releasing an intense yellow light. These blocks reproduce the square plan of Masdar City, a new city currently under construction in the desert of Abu Dhabi. Designed by British architect Sir Norman Foster, Masdar City aims to be an ecologic model city of 50,000 inhabitants, without cars, consuming zero carbon and producing zero waste, a prototype for cities in the future. Emerging from the vertical blocks as a public sculpture or publicity sign is a reproduction in wood of the open hand symbol of Chandigarh- experimental and social capital of the Indian states of Pendjab and Haryana constructed in 1951 by LE CORBUSIER that implements its architectural and urban theories- the link between these two projects of new utopian cities. But if LE CORBUSIER saw in the hand a symbol of remembrance, the giving and exchanging between men, and in the expression lines of traffic that innervate a city, it seems here to express more a future that came to an end. While Chandigarh has become a preserved city well short of its ideals of departure, Masdar City, a city built with ecological oil money will be reserved for the elite. Futuristic city out in the desert like a mirage or an image of science fiction, Masdar City will be surrounded by high walls to protect it from hot winds and sand storms, and will have workers regulating the exterior of its walls. Encased by an overwhelming yellow light, that is reminiscent of the desert sun spots but also construction workers who take turns 24 hours non-stop for the construction of Masdar City, the stainless steel plates of "Yellow River" evoke the roof panels that will ensure the energy independence of the city that's walls comprised of glass mirrors.
