The idea is to die young as late as possible. — Ashley Montagu — Tuesday February 25th — —

“What art does — maybe what it does most completely — is tell us, make us feel that what we think we know, we don’t. There are whole worlds around us that we’ve never glimpsed.” Greil Marcus — Tuesday February 25th — —

I love listening. It is one of the only spaces where you can be still and moved at the same time. — Nayyirah Waheed — Tuesday February 25th — —

Marc Giai-Miniet

Marc Giai-Miniet is a French artist who makes highly fascinating dioramas that tend to feature reproductions of human organs, crime scenes, submarines in basements, and our favorite: libraries. The libraries by Giai-Miniet are detailed and striking, replete with book cover art, author names, and identifiable typography. Occasionally a diorama’s title will conjure a loose narrative, an obscure starting point from which the viewer might further consider the art. Giai-Miniet balances the handcraft of tiny diorama with poignant explorations through memory, association, and dreamscape. His tiny homes, though dealing with images of mundane possessions, industrial equipment, and furniture, evoke a feeling that’s very surreal and a little sinister.

Although the artist also creates scenes from different parts one finds in a house, a lot of Marc Giai-Miniet’s tableaus deal with libraries. Rooms crowd with floor-to-ceiling books, spanning floors and floors of shelves. In the lightest sense, these form metaphors for the clarity and redundancy of memory, the archeology of personal and collected narratives, and a geological collection of sentiment on object; in the darkest sense, descending through increasingly poorly-lit levels in works such as his work called ‘Library as a Mine’, they verge on the edge of overwhelming the space, a bibliophile’s hoarding bordering on obsession and a deeply rooted fear of forgetfulness and loss. The artist states on how he sees a library in the context of someone’s life:

Men show in their books the beauty of the universe but also of their peremptory chasms.

In all, Giai-Miniet creates his fascinating scenes: “drawing strictly from personal history and remembered environments, and points of fancy: a giant mess of pipes and ductwork resemble a heart, a gaping hole in the ground leads instead to a submarine in crime scene.” Everything represented very real and slightly creepy at the same time.

We are totally amazed and fascinated by the work of Giai-Miniet!

For more information see here.