archeologie contemporaine anglais servant ermes

Contemporary Archaeology 1939 1945

By Gerard SERVANT ERMES, sculptor

The Atlantic coast:

Ever since has the Atlantic coast inspired and invited us for a walk, for a distraction, to change one’s mind and to see something else. Immerged in this “nature” bath one could almost forget the presence of concrete blocks, placed everywhere on the beach because the people living here have accepted these bunkers as a “naturally” integral part of the landscape. This emphasizes even more the wish not to forget.

Today these bunkers serve as communication platforms, houses, restaurants or events, mankind is sharing its daily life with these war constructions.

For the visitor this massive human architecture cannot be forgotten in this naturally wild landscape.

About steel wire and grenades dating from 1939 to 1945:

If you ever visited some of those bunkers, you might see amongst other things steel wire, corrosive steel plates and grenade splinters.

In a place such as this Gerard discovered and saved a strange object of a long shape made of steel wire with corrosive sand balls.

A work of art created by nature:

Very close to the esthetical art of Giacometti and literally “drawing” a caricature of an all-known historical personality, Gerard named it "Don Quichotte".

It is the graphical side of the object that attracts him first, later on he is touched by the poetry and the originality of this natural alchemy. He keeps this object and installs it in the middle of his studio amidst his sculptures made of carbon which are so differing. In fact, there is an enormous esthetical difference between this naturally formed, long shaped, obdurate, uncompleted and uneven when touched sculpture and his smooth, very refined and delicate carbon fibre creations.

« Don Quichotte » The reference to its creation

This object was made by material used to construct bunkers, and was modelled by time and nature … The force of this symbolism and of the poetry within this natural creation inspires the sculptor to further work on this artistic “homage” by incorporating ore materials composed of corrosive sands which he found close to some of these historical concrete block buildings… This Don Quichotte is really a work of art of nature!

Some sort of archaeology:

This is when the contemporary archaeology work studies started: by the change of exploring these sites to explicitly looking for objects. Because these corrosive steel wires and grenade splinters are covered by sand, consequently one has to work like an archaeologist: with a lot of intuition, patience and consequence in the search and their discovery.

The work of the sculptor:

Here and now begins the work of the sculptor, Gerard SERVANT ERMES. The steel wires composed of corrosive sand balls are stretched, cut, folded or drilled manually and then supported by a synthetic resin structure in order to give birth to new sculptures.

Relying on his instinct and spontaneity the sculptor visualises some clichés of the daily life of men and women at this specific period. Fifty statuettes take part in this “archaeological theatre”. The sculptor wishes to express their way of life by giving them uncompleted and even caricatured forms without being exhaustingly ambitions. By doing his work this way he respects the architectural style of the naturally formed sculpture of “Don Quichotte” and he favours all imaginative tendency of the observer.

An appeal to emotions:

Art provokes the development of sense, appeals to all forms of emotions and should have an effect upon the observer. Without reaction art makes no sense. These statuettes remind us of history and of stories but History What should then be more symbolic as to remind us of history with a theatre of statuettes made out of material from that period?

All generations are concerned:

It is another way of understanding and learning history, and all generations of observers can be concerned. The future cannot be built without memories, without roots. Art is offering its services for an important quest: find a better humanity.

Homage and culture to memento:

This art form is more than an artistic homage. It is meant to go even farther in understanding the culture of remembrance by “using” the steel wires corroded by time and nature. To visualise and to respect the quotation of

Bertold Brecht:«He who forgets or ignores his past is condemned to relive it”