OBJETROUVÉ: a dialogue between a square and a circle
Express interview with artist and musician Stephane Argillet Stereovoid about his label’s sculpture-albums and the Warsaw exhibition of his art
Launched in 2020, the OBJETROUVÉ record label stands out against the majority of the contemporary music industry, dominated by data streams of online music services, by offering a wonderful opportunity for the listener to perceive a music album as a material object ‒ one that can be viewed and examined, collected, shown, fetishized or commented on.
The figure behind this idea of object-records is Stephane Argillet Stereovoid, the Berlin- and Marseille-based founder of the label, a member of the well-known conceptual art group France Fiction and musical projects La Chatte and Peine Perdue. Stephane, who is of French-Swedish extraction, is a musician and composer himself; his record label focuses on electronic and experimental music. Each record released by OBJETROUVÉ is developed as a sensitive visual reflection of the specific artist’s work; furthermore, the visual concept is always embodied in two different versions: standard, between 100 and 200 numbered copies, and a collector’s edition, between 20 and 30 object-records, more unique and visually impactful.
Stéphane Argillet Stereovoid, OBJETROUVÉ. Exhibition view. Photo: Bartosz Górka. Сourtesy of the artist and Pola Magnetyczne Galler
July 2022 saw an OBJETROUVÉ object-record exhibition open at the well-known Pola Magnetyczne Gallery in Warsaw; it is running through 13 August 2022. We contacted Stephane to ask him for a more detailed comment on his sculpture-album concept and a new release at his label, in some ways linked with Riga.
Stéphane Argillet Stereovoid, OBJETROUVÉ. Exhibition view. Photo: Bartosz Górka. Сourtesy of the artist and Pola Magnetyczne Galler
This is a very unusual exhibition for our time – a show of cover art for albums released by your label OBJETROUVÉ. Album art has always been an interesting and popular part of visual culture, but it seems that you have taken this medium to another level, almost elevating it to the realm of sculpture. Could you tell us how it happened? And how do you usually work on your ideas?
I am a visual and conceptual artist, as well as a musician since many years. Most of my work also involves close collaboration with other artists or contains a social dimension. My work as a musician has always been an opportunity to work on the visual aspect ‒ album covers, flyers, posters, videos, t-shirts ‒ in a more pop and less thoughtful way than my work as an artist. A few years ago, in order to finance the production of a studio album with my previous musical project Peine Perdue (a synthwave duet with singer and writer Coco Gallo), we came up with the idea of producing a collector’s edition, which took the form of a box containing not only a record but also various objects, more or less abstractly related to the theme of the album. This project was an immediate success and gave me the idea of continuing this work of expanding sound as objects that would have a deliberately ambiguous status, between a plastic illustration to the music and an autonomous object illustrated by the music. The idea was also to reinstate an exchange value and a materiality to music at a time when it circulates digitally, almost free, unlimited and dematerialized.
What are the visual influences that you embody in your releases? Are there any album covers that have served as an example for you, or do you introduce influences from completely different art forms to this area?
I can’t identify a specific influence. I never think in terms of direct references, and I always try to push the boundaries a little further in terms of plasticity, material, volumes... I have used Plexiglas, cement, wood... I am currently working in metal and mirror. I’m just trying to stay within a final format which is that of a 12-inch record sleeve. It’s a formal constraint that I like. A square (the cover) within which a circle (the record) is inscribed. This dialogue between these two fundamental geometric shapes is a source of minimal formalism that particularly inspires me and corresponds to the musical genre to which the label is dedicated: minimal synth. I also like the fact that the record can exist in two states: the normal “flat” format can be transformed into a three-dimensional sculpture, with the possibility of rearranging the different parts of the record in many ways. In this respect, there may be some references to constructivism.
Do you have any visual associations when you listen to or compose music?
Not in terms of thematic reference, but rather in terms of formal composition. The different elements of a track ‒ a synth sound, a melodic line, the irruption of a sonority, the edition of the vocals ‒ can appear to me as an arrangement of abstract visual signals in space, like a score where the notes are replaced by blocks of geometric shapes of different texture and colour. This is the way I conceive the label’s object-records in relation to the music they materialise.
Are there other independent labels in today’s music world that follow a similar path, turning albums into tangible works of art?
Not that I know of…
Album “Things & Fingers”
The exhibition will also feature the album “Things & Fingers” with contributions by two authors from Latvia – Sergej Timofejev, a member of the Arterritory editorial board, and musician Andrei Oid, who was born in Riga but has been living abroad for the last 15 years. You have also contributed to it as a musician. Could you tell us about the idea behind its design?
For this specific project, I wanted to use mainly wood and only two colours, black and gold, applied in silkscreen printing. Rather than developing the form in volume as in some previous projects, I wanted to work with successive layers of materials, like the pages of an illuminated book. The object also includes a printed publication of Sergej’s poems, translated into English and French. I also based my work around the number three and the image of a hand with three fingers raised. In medieval religious iconography, especially in France, this gesture is called the “hand of justice”. The three fingers represent the three artists who have combined their work for this record. I started working on this cover at the time when the war started in Ukraine, and this hand of justice also became a call for justice and peace. The shapes that make up the record-sculpture started to represent some kind of urban skyline, and I started to burn some of these elements. This originally non-planned “destructive” intervention is, of course, a reference to the dramatic events that directly impacted some of us, especially Andrei, who chose to leave Russia to seek refuge in Georgia.
Stéphane Argillet Stereovoid, OBJETROUVÉ. Exhibition view
