Antoine Defoort

Antoine Defoort was born in Lille. Trained as a plastic artist, he has an unfettered and quirky humour. If this guy from Lille, who began by studying maths and performance arts before turning to fine arts, started to take an interest in the performance of the installation, it is because he can store everything that interests him there: sounds, texts, videos, bodies. A surprising piece of work, bordering on digital art, contemporary art and schoolboy jokes.

“After a chaotic mini university experience, I began studying art via a variety of French institutions and I am now the owner of the prestigious Diplôme National Supérieur d’Expression Plastique (Higher Diploma in Plastic Arts), approved by the French Minister of Culture and Communication, the famous DNSEP diploma, that I obtained in 2004 in my school, called ERSEP in Tourcoing, which, for a laugh, my mates and I called ERPES. During these studies I gradually realized that contemporary art performance was the perfect container for storing all types of miscellaneous contents, and that was just brilliant because miscellany was one of my pet subjects (dada in French), and was, moreover, my references. The purpose of this piece of work is to establish connections. Connections between forms, senses, media, materials. We could say that this is really collections of connections. Or, if you prefer, “collexions”. Failures and approximations are adjusted with care and create a unique line of beauty. Even though I create shows and am invited to dance festivals, I still declare that I am a plastic artist, that I have an approach and I propose a framework that is based on visual art. I have a plan B just in case I fail in my artistic career, but I’m not going to tell you what it is, because if that fails too, then it’s lousy. » (Antoine Defoort)

Source: Antoine Defoort ‘s website