Architectures-sculptures or sculptures-architectures, the abstract volumes of Mengzhi Zheng (France, 1983) waver between these two categories.

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As architectures alone, they would be uninhabitable: formally post-Cubist, they have no purpose as living spaces. Rather than sculptures, they are assemblages since Mengzhi Zheng uses common, salvaged woods—those of industrial furniture—which he cuts, shapes to his liking, dowels, glues, and screws. He collects panels and boards carelessly discarded by their consumerist owners on the streets.

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He particularly values white laminate, perhaps the most "impure" and vulgar element used in contemporary design. He sands it down, revealing patches of wood beneath the Formica layer, giving it color nuances, and ultimately assembles everything with great sensitivity. Mengzhi Zheng also creates the bases for his works, crafted with the same formal finesse, each one sanded and in different shades.

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The gallery owner, Damien Levy, aptly notes that these constructions and their bases, arranged in a line, evoke the paintings of Giorgio Morandi.

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Indeed, Mengzhi Zheng works with a palette of beiges, creams, whites, and grays, at least in this recent period.

Previously, pure color, reminiscent of Mondrian, if one may say so, was sparingly distributed across this sea of light pastels.

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References to renowned architects—Koolhaas, Ando, Fujimoto, Fujimori, and Le Corbusier—were more present at that time.

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Mengzhi Zheng is an artist of the indefinable through the almost nothing.

Philippe Ducat