FRANKFURT.- In a radical act of artistic transformation, Mike Bouchet has destroyed his monumental sculpture Sir Walter Scott. The entire work was fed into an industrial machine that shreds wood into fibers for OSB panels. From this material, Bouchet has created his new Relivare wall reliefs, now on view at Galerie Parisa Kind.
The sculpture Sir Walter Scott (2010) was itself already a reincarnation. It was made from Watershed (2009), a 300-square-meter suburban home that was floated, sunk, and re-floated in the Arsenale lagoon at the Venice Biennale. The house was later cut apart and transformed into Sir Walter Scott, a large-scale sculpture exhibited at institutions including Schirn Kunsthalle in 2010 and subsequently acquired into a private collection.
Nearly fifteen years later, Bouchet has subjected this work to yet another metamorphosis. In an act of material violence, the sculpture was ground down into the coarse fibrous mass used for OSB. These fragments form the basis of the new reliefs. Applied carefully to fresh OSB panels, the material folds its own life cycle back onto itself.
Embedded within the textured surfaces are remnants from the original house along with a wide range of objects selected by the artist. These include personal items—children’s toys, clothing, household goods—alongside studio materials such as colored pencils, paintbrushes, tape, and used paint tubes. Fragments of earlier artworks also reappear: shredded dollar bills (Tender, 2012), artificial French fries (MR2, 2016), metallic gelatin, and an eclectic assortment of found or purchased objects. They function like archaeological deposits within the strata, offering dense surfaces that invite close inspection.
In these works, destruction and reformation are inseparable. Bouchet transforms obliteration into a provocative and sensual new material language—at once archaeological and futuristic, humorous and tragic, monumental and forensic. The Renaissance concept of relivare—to raise forms again from the same ground—provides the conceptual foundation. The result is an innovative body of work situated at the intersection of sculptural tradition, post-industrial materiality, and the cultural narratives embedded in our built environment.
Mike Bouchet (born 1970 in Castro Valley, California) lives and works in Frankfurt a Main and Offenbach. His works are represented in numerous international private and public collections, including LVMH Collection Paris, Belvedere Museum Vienna, CAPC/Musée d'Art Contemporain de Bordeaux, Bernard Arnault Collection Paris, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art Oslo, Moderna Museet Stockholm, Deutsche Bank Collection Frankfurt/M, DZ Bank Frankfurt/M, DekaBank Collection Frankfurt/M, Städelmuseum Frankfurt/M, Museum Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt/M, Margulies Collection Miami, Ullens Collection Beijing. Bouchet also has been participating artist in international biennials such as the Venice Biennial in 2009 and Manifesta in Zurich 2016. His works has been exhibited in various international Institutions and Museum exhibitions as MoMA PS1 (2005), Palais de Tokyo (2009), Schirn Kunsthalle (solo, 2010), Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo (2008, 2009, 2015), Jumex Collection Mexico (2012), Kunstverein Hannover (Made in Germany 2, 2012), Portikus Frankfurt/M (together with Paul McCarthy, 2014), National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, Norway (2018), Middelheimmuseum Antwerp, Belgium (2018), AROS Museum in Aarhus, DK (2019), Kunsthal Charlottenborg Copenhagen, DK (2020). Mike Bouchet received the 1822 Art Prize by the Frankfurter Sparkasse Foundation in 2014. Since 2019 the artist holds a professorship for sculpture at HfG in Offenbach.
