It sometimes happens that a spontaneous dialogue takes place
between a work and those who are to be its public.
It often happens that our senses do not perceive that which
does not exist, which was only an intention. But when the eye
returns, questions, settles, then an image wiIl certainly germinate,
an image built on our own ideas, grasped with our awareness. Could
this be a re-creation?
Jean-Pierre Umbdenstock makes us willing partners in such games
and makes us fall into their traps by superposing clarity of stance
(lucidity), areas of ambiguity (destructuring) and fields of obscurity.
One cannot help but apply to his work a thought of Riba about
his own: "what counts in sculpture is not the mass but the
idea which generated it".
Let us go in quest of the idea which impels us (to avoid pitfalls)
to follow the man in his nomadic wandering, his multiple occupations
(preoccupations) and successive positions. If sculpture is in
the idea, the work of Umbdenstock may be interpreted through his
attitudes and his physical itinerary.
The simple mention of a possible "duplicate creation"
will always generate the inevitable reaction of Umbdenstocks;
perhaps re-creators; at the very least unflagging experimenters
of a never-definitive order for us to dream and compose.
Didier Nick - April 1999
Luminous chiaroscuro
Jean-Pierre Umbdenstock admits to being a glass researcher, one of the very few labels he will allow.
Researchers are sometimes a bit daunting. They hold the keys of "progress", but one is never sure
why and how theu research. On the other hand, they question, struggle, publish and co-operate, in short, they are
supposed to inform and reassure us about our capacity to evolve.Researchers and artists are so alike one could reshuffle the term to give "researchist"
and "arter". Jean-Pierre Umbdenstock has always stood for the unity of glass, wether from a creative or a personal point of view. He makes no
difference between the material, the piece, the wokshop or the passion and debate they awaken. Quite simply because, as he says: "You can see through it".
QED: glass, then, does not exist! To discover it, you must cover it. Somewhat like what everyone carts around without really knowing it: their soul
The life and workshop of Jean-Pierre Umbdenstock are thus peopled with souls. Like at the end of a TV show, you can say hello to Véronique and the kids
(his and the ones who come to visit)
to Robert, to Nanard and his calf's head (cooked), to the Poulbots who hang out in his restaurant, to the crazy dog with a coat like a cow's,
to passing glass artists, to designers...and, like on TV when the lits gets too long "to all those who know him".
But that doesn't take in the researcher paradox.
Jean-Pierre admits he loves to feel alone when all about him is in movement. Fingers gripping the stylus, when the times comes, he goes missing,
absorbed and impregnable. The result
is a work of glass but also a work of drama in which he is both actor and audience.
Later on, just as abruptly, he emerges from this moment of creative relaxation and casts a furtive glance over the world to make sure it hasn't dissolved
during his absence.
Meanwhile, a work has been born and we rush to observe the minute script and grasp its meaning. A palm tree, letters arranged into words
oriental signs, in other words, meticulously organised gibberish. Of course it is writing itself which is written and until we know why cavemen daubed
their hands with ochre to leave a mark, sorry, the message is unknown
, so there is no point in complicating the issue.
By the way, researchers make their dicoveries by intuition, when chance is on their side. The word comes from late Latin "circare", to go around.
Thierry de Beaumont - April 1999
