« Les joueuses de Cartes » (The card players)
Margaret Michel
2006
Table: 113 cm x 100 cm x 60 cm
Chairs: 125 cm x 48 cm x 42 cm
Two wooden chairs, one wooden table, two electric engines, batteries, inverter, acetate
A table, two chairs, all a little bit antiquated, made from wood. What is striking is that these pieces of furniture are a little bit higher than they should be for normal use. This is due to their small wheels at the end of their extended legs – two wheels for each chair. Even the legs without wheels have an extension, but not a fixed one. They are movable by a little engine fixed at the joint. On second view the backs of the chairs are just as interesting, since they seem to have a face, each with two blue eyes and an important nose in between.
When this installation from Margaret Michel is in motion, the furniture starts to live: somewhat clumsy the chairs are moving around the immobile table. While watching this strange theatre we might wonder what it has to do with the title “The card players”. Is this furniture expecting the card players in happy anticipation? Or do they try to escape before the game starts? Is the party just over and the witnesses are still in excitement? Were there ever card players or will be?
Perhaps this pondering is not important for you, because you can just as well only watch the game of the moving furniture, be attracted by this unusual situation and find some rest in freeing your mind from the daily ordinary, like card players do in their way.
If you like, you might even be more relaxed in watching Margaret’s longer films about her installations and exhibitions on her website.
Background to “Les joueuses de Cartes”
In the beginning Margaret wanted to create only a chair that can walk. The result was an object with the aspect of a child, which walks a little bit unstable at the start. It was named “Frankenchair” inspired by the monster “Frankenstein”. The way it moves, sluggish and undecided, makes one think of the first steps of the artificial being in the film of the same name. Margaret refers here to the temptation to create new artificial life.
The transparencies at the back of the chair, which give the impression of eyes, are in reality images taken from the telescope Hubble showing a supernova. They are the symbol for the supremacy of nature that is watching the mechanisation of human being.
Margaret’s Frankenchair was her answer to the manipulation of the DNA to create new sorts of plants and animals. From this statement she developed the installation to underline the fact that it’s only a little group in the world who decides by chance about our common future.
This view on the installation gives another, more horrific impression in watching the awkward movements of the members of the group. The outcome, our future, is decided by accident like in a game of cards.
Margaret’s works are often a reflexion about nature, the human being and technology. Depending on the background of the viewer they might be more frightening or more relaxing, but they are often an invitation to meditate.
Margaret Michel
Born in New York (1955), she studied art history at the George Mason University, Virginia (USA) and at the École du Louvre, Paris, France. In parallel Margaret was a student of drawing and sculpture at the American Centre in Paris under Gregory Masurovsky and Cyril Heck.
Back in the USA Margaret was trained in metal casting at the School of Fine Arts in Metal foundry San Jose, California (USA), worked as assistant from David Middlebrook in Iowa (USA) and as assistant of James Turrel (http://rodencrater.com) in Arizona (USA).
She had numerous personnel and group exhibitions in the USA and Europe. Besides several awards, Margaret attended many residences. Since 1998 she lives and works in Vallauris (France).
http://margaret-michel.com