The Plank Tree

A prophetic work by the committed sculptor Arson

This Friday 07/21/2023, a monumental sculpture was inaugurated at the Bouchet Town Hall, created by the contemporary French sculptor,Arson, now Bousquetain. This sculpture, called“the plank tree”was inspired by what he sees of the violent impact of man on nature to get maximum benefit from it.

Arson, an artist without taboo

Inhabited by the idea he has that artists of all disciplines are the testimony of their time and at the risk of displeasing or shocking, he offers through this contemporary sculpture, a reflection on our capitalist world, without moral values or spirituality.

For the French sculptor, art and sculpture, in particular, are the legacy that artists will leave over time, as a testimony to the best trace of man.

His sculptural work has evolved over the years and, after a period that he describes as“surreal” (see his sculpture “Muslim” or his creation “the telephone”), he went through a pop art and colorful period with the “Esculmaux” or “les Bonbons” to speak only of these spanking sculptures, which would be pure provocations, clean to reflect on the hypocritical and unspoken taboos that persist in today's society.

Portrait in black and white of Arson in his studio

A sculpture in the face of the environmental emergency

Instead of mellowing over the years, the sculptor is angry. He says he suffers from seeing millions of hectares of trees burning like in Canada or Siberia, in France and everywhere in the world, uncontrollable fires, or millions of hectares of forests cut down like in the Amazon... without discernment or respect. Unfortunately, it's not just trees, it's seas and oceans, rivers and polluted lands, increasingly overexploited.

For the artist, with his personal spirituality, which distinguishes global warming from the outrageous exploitation of the earth, we have destroyed what was a paradise and, after the latter, will come hell. They are on earth and not in heaven.

It is not a sculptor or a few other artists who will be enough to reverse the infernal machine and green the world, it is his means of expression and this sculpture“the plank tree” is not just a contemporary sculpture, nor a pile of scrap metal, it is the artistic testimony of a sculptor of today.

Imagine the unimaginable:

a denatured tree

“The plank tree” bears witness to the artist’s strong awareness of man’s impact on nature.

While a powerful symbol of life and renewal, the tree transforms into a utilitarian structure in this contemporary sculpture.

“The plank tree is a work that carriesa crucial warningabout our relationship with nature. A sculpture that I created with passion and conviction, the sculpture of a tree in denatured iron, a powerful representation of the fragility of nature, in the face of our frantic quest for profits. »

“The Plank Tree” was designed to be cut with as little human intervention as possible and without embellishment: the trunk will make beams, the branches will make boards or cleats. No leaves, no fruit: you have tooptimize and make profitable.

The square steel shape of the “Plank Tree” evokesaalarming distortion, a warning to remind us that nature, our source of life, is precious and fragile. If we continue to neglect it and exploit it without consideration, we risk breaking this sacred bond that unites us to it.