In Joseph Rykwert’s somewhat controversial 1996 book, The Dancing Column: On Order in Architecture, the architectural historian analyses in depth the various ways the human body has informed architecture since its beginnings. Rykwert’s electrifying examination of the body-column metaphor – used to describe the way ancient architects used the male and female body as studies for Doric and Ionic columns – serves as the inspiration for Paul de Monchaux’s new exhibition at the Megan Piper gallery in London, 'Ten Columns'.
Eight Studies for Male & Female Columns references Rykwert’s text directly in a series of domestic-sized pale lime wood sculptures; the gender of each is ambiguous, revealing more about the unseen body than the forms we recognise. Supported – rather than supporting, as was the use of their architectural ancestors – de Monchaux’s masculine/feminine columns are scaled down and placed on a ledge, contrasting with two larger, heavier iterations, cast in oily bronze, resembling the tops of an ancient column, curling like hair.
'Eight Studies for Male & Female Columns' (left), 2016; and 'Volute IV', 2016
It’s not a surprise that de Monchaux – known for his big public commissions, usually memorials – has returned to bodies. In 1955, when he began studying at the Slade, working with the body was de rigueur, and according to the anecdotes, de Monchaux could be found meticulously measuring its geometry. He began to undertake public commissions in 1986, after retiring from his position as the head of sculpture at Camberwell School of Art, referring to his practice as ‘figurative sculpture’. It was only in 2013 – more than 50 years after his time at the Slade – that he presented his works in a gallery exhibition.
Though de Monchaux’s new sculptures (all from 2016) are in part a breathtaking manifestation of this intense study of geometry, there is something far more evocative about their elegant forms. Just as much of the human body is concealed from view – movements that happen under the clothes and the skin – the sensuous surfaces of de Monchaux’s works capture something that can be felt and understood but that is usually invisible.
Eight Studies for Male & Female Columns, 2016
Volute V, 2016
INFORMATION
'Paul de Monchaux: Ten Columns' is on view until 13 January 2017. For more information, visit the Megan Piper website
ADDRESS
Megan Piper
67 Jermyn Street (Harris Lindsay)
London SW1Y 6NY
-
Year in review: top 10 design stories of 2024Wallpaper* magazine's 10 most-read design stories of 2024 whisk us from fun Ikea pieces to the man who designed the Paris Olympics, and 50 years of the Rubik's Cube
-
Sharon Smith's Polaroids capture 1980s New York nightlifeIDEA Books has launched a new monograph of Smith’s photographs, titled Camera Girl and edited by former editor-in-chief of LIFE magazine, Bill Shapiro
-
A multifaceted Beverly Hills house puts the beauty of potentiality in the frameA Beverly Hills house in Trousdale, designed by Robin Donaldson, brings big ideas to the residential scale
-
Inside the distorted world of artist George RouyFrequently drawing comparisons with Francis Bacon, painter George Rouy is gaining peer points for his use of classic techniques to distort the human form
-
‘I'm endlessly fascinated by the nude’: Somaya Critchlow’s intimate and confident drawings are on show in London‘Triple Threat’ at Maximillian William gallery in London is British artist Somaya Critchlow’s first show dedicated solely to drawing
-
Surrealism as feminist resistance: artists against fascism in Leeds‘The Traumatic Surreal’ at the Henry Moore Institute, unpacks the generational trauma left by Nazism for postwar women
-
Looking forward to Tate Modern’s 25th anniversary partyFrom 9-12 May 2025, Tate Modern, one of London’s most adored art museums, will celebrate its 25th anniversary with a lively weekend of festivities
-
Out of office: what the Wallpaper* editors have been doing this weekA week in the world of Wallpaper*. Here's how our editors have been entertaining themselves in the run up to Christmas
-
Love, melancholy and domesticity: Anna Calleja is a painter to watchAnna Calleja explores everyday themes in her exhibition, ‘One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night’, at Sim Smith, London
-
Ndayé Kouagou speaks the language of the chaotic social media influencer in LondonNdayé Kouagou celebrates meandering incoherence with an exhibition, ‘A Message for Everybody’, at Gathering in London
-
Out of office: what the Wallpaper* editors have been doing this weekA snowy Swiss Alpine sleepover, a design book fest in Milan, and a night with Steve Coogan in London – our editors' out-of-hours adventures this week
