(French, b. 1942)
Biography
Speaking of philosophy, Plato said it was “a beautiful risk to run”. This is what Anne and Patrick Poirier think about Art, and about their life as artists, it is a beautiful risk to run, “and we run it together.” In 1978, the Poirier’s took their first trip to see Blaschka, the bohemian master of glass blowing. The intention was to reproduce the entire flora of north America in glass. The models were produced outside America, later given the series title of ‘Fragility’ due to the movement of the fragile work from one country to another.
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This rare glass botanical collection is housed, today, at The Harvard University Art Museums, where an entire floor is dedicated to it. Each piece is displayed in a glass case which further accentuates the feeling of ‘fragility’. “At any given moment, in any given life, all can be jostled, shattered, made to disappear. History, as well as our personal histories, cruelly evidence these truths at every turn. How explore, how report or represent such fragility ? What else should we be doing, now, in the midst of such cosmic fragility ? The fight is hopeless, in many ways, and yet one must continue at all cost.” [Anne and Patrick Poirier] In the 1990’s, Anne and Patrick Poirier made a series of photographic still lives. Work included images of arrangements of dying lilies, rotting fruit, red fabrics, children’s toys and crumpled, deflated plastic globes. The ‘Fragility’ theme then expanded on this subject of decay with colour photographs of dried petals inscribed with words such as SEX, RUINS and WOUNDS. As archaeologist/ architect types, the Poirier’s drew parallels between thoughts, memory and architecture. History from ones personal experience is to be constantly toured and explored. Anne and Patrick Poirier have exhibited worldwide, including France, USA and the UK.