Timeless Forms...

For a number of years now, Reims city centre has been occupied by rather spectral figures that tower above the hurried citizens that rush about their daily activities, too busy in their present thoughts perhaps to think of the past. Are these dark, massive forms with their passive yet forceful, brooding presence doing this for us? It is difficult to tell if they are our guardians as they peer out, keeping a benevolent, vigilant gaze on their urban surroundings and our existence therein or if they are rather guards, surveiling our every move, ready to take action if we overstep some mark, known only to them. Placed in different sites around Reims, these sculpted forms with their block-like, feature-less faces appear to follow us from every possible angle, from their chosen vantage points. With their plain silhouettes, without limbs or even actual faces, let alone facial expression, we nevertheless feel their human force. Carved from old trees, each with their own past, their rough, rugged blackened wood creates an impression of something timeless, tied to the land and mankind alike. And yet they are weighted down in history; our collective history, one that is universal. These are the work of a regional artist, Christian Lapie (1955- ), for whom the wounds of the war years are almost tangible, pulsating below the surface of the modern-day city of Reims and its region, some hundred years after the Great War. Charred and scarred, these figures evoke the soldiers and civilians alike who so suffered in the "war to end all wars". Likewise, they seem to underline the fact that war still rumbles on, further afield, continuing its grotesque work regardless, with its dehumanizing hold on humanity that is now part of the human condition. Although I am not generally attracted to modern art, these pieces fascinate me. Each time I catch sight of the huge sculptural forms of these enigmatic sentinels grouped together, I somehow sense a reassuring force that is tinged with with a strange evocation of past mistakes and the lessons that have not been learnt from these but could still.