Jessy Razafimandimby

Lives and works in Geneva, Switzerland

Artist statement

When thinking about Jessy Razafimandimby's body of work, a quote from the 1972 Claude Sautet movie Cesar et Rosalie immediately comes to mind: "It's a house we'd forgotten. Carla remembers the color of the shutters... I'm sure it is not the same". There is in that extract, taken from a letter that Rosalie (played by Romy Schneider) sent to her old flame David (played by Sami Frey), two ideas important in Razafimandimby's practice: Domesticity and Memory. Referenced by the artist itself, this anachronic reference is telling of how his body of work is both anchored in a certain contemporary zeitgeist and free-floating in last century melancholia. Jessy's use of early 20th furniture objects is multi-layered in its intentions. Recognizable as a sign of an aging bourgeois and aristocrat class, Jessy's readymades don't directly question that aspect but rather the proliferation of these objects in the everyman Malagasy family's home. A remnant of the country's colonial past, the various lamps, sofas and side tables were brought to Madagascar by the French businessmen, families and state workers until the island independence in the late 1950s. They later found their way in many domestic spaces, including the artist's family home in Madagascar and later in Geneva. While not directly inquiring about the political aspect of these objects, Razafimandimby delves into the memories and the attachment linked to these ornaments at a personal, familial and cultural level. As such,...

Artwork