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1995

Yves Guerin

Sculpture

136 x 75 x 27 cm

Having worked first with granite in his native French department of the Corrèze between 1975 and 1980, Yves Guérin decides then to draw inspiration from the ancestral forge to create shapes with railways and metallic bars. Initially used as a concept, he gives them a new orientation, modelling it.
This physical relationship is essential to the artist: “To me, material is divine. It is possible thanks to it to question oneself about infinity.” The rails have a symbolic content which evokes the “archetype of the industrial world” - to quote the artist, and the transport, the freedom and the possibilities implied with it. This kind of hippocampus combines the artisan roughness and a delicate trace, performing balance feat as if metal wasn’t metal.

Yves Guerin

France

Born in 1953

Born in 1953 in Saint-Privat (Corrèze), France

After working with granite in his native Corrèze between 1975 and 1980, Yves Guérin turned to forging and metalwork, drawing on an ancestral craft that he integrates into a contemporary artistic practice. He notably uses railway tracks and metal bars, initially conceived as conceptual elements before gradually becoming the core of his formal vocabulary.

His work is based on an intimate and physical relationship with matter, grounded in effort, precision of gesture, and transformation through fire. For the artist, metal goes beyond its purely industrial dimension to become a medium for reflection and questioning, carrying an almost spiritual resonance.

The forged rails evoke the archetype of the industrial world while also suggesting movement, displacement, and freedom. Bent, twisted, or assembled into supple, organic lines, they move away from their original function to open up a poetic and mental space.

The so-called ‘hippocampal’ forms recurrent in his work embody the tension between artisanal roughness and finesse of line. They reflect a search for balance in which metal, mastered through gesture, reveals a contained energy and strong formal clarity.

Guérin taught sculpture at the Fine Arts School in Clermont-Ferrand, near his workshop and ironworks.

Monumental sculptures were produced for the towns of Thiers, Clermont-Ferrand, Riom, and La Chaise-Dieu.