“Rêve municipal”
Bevis Martin & Charlie Youle

This is almost by chance, looking for a ballot box, that artists got to visit the town workshops of the city of Nantes. There they have found a town in the town, made up of podiums, lights, flags, boards, polling booths, chairs, models of property developments, pennants, carnival and Christmas decorations, in short, everything necessary for the organization of a city. All these objects had multiple users, multiple lives. Diverting them from their original use, assembling them according to their shape, colour, Bevis Martin and Charlie Youle create the huge Alstom hall, a festive world, sometime strange. The visitor strolls in the street of a funny town, reduced to its signs, recalling, any old how, writings of Nantes surrealist Pierre Roy, echoes from “W“ novel of Georges Perec or even fantasies of Lewis Caroll.

Well-informed collectors endowed with a serious fondness for “the fan or lover spirit”, “lost images, anonymity”, Bevis Martin & Charlie Youle seize “objects that had a life in people’s private life” and introduce them to us in their own way. They work together since they have met during their art studies at Sheffield Hallam University. They settled in Nantes after having attended International Post-graduate studies at the “École Régionale des Beaux-Arts” (local art school), they also work in London and Paris.

www.martinandyoule.com