Operating between the fields of architecture and sculpture, the works refute construction as a rational enterprise, but instead imagine it as a process simply made up of accumulations of matter, shapeless and brutal. The approach seeks to abandon architectural formalism and the desire for a more raw and intelligible reality of architecture. The aim is therefore to reduce architecture to a skeletal state in order to see, like in an open body, its components and make visible the forces that went through it. These buildings are built in an intermediate language, materially unfinished, which is why they are less buildings than a form of pre-architecture.
A cycle of projects entitled: Worksite I, II, III and IV (the last chapter has been entitled Black Mortar) are worksites which produced chaotic and spontaneous fragments of architecture, with the aim of one day becoming the alphabet of a complete building. Other projects such as Building/Prototype I and II are constructions that focus more on the articulations between the elements than on the elements themselves. The crudeness of language is intensified by the enhancement of articulations: chains, concrete reinforcing bars, superpositions and accumulations.
"Hence relieving the blockage was always (...) the object of a feverish pursuit. Ancient societies found relief in festivals; some erected admirable monuments that had no useful purpose." Georges Bataille - The accursed shared
Marc Leschelier is a Paris-based sculptor and architect. Leschelier builds architecture without function, called prearchitecture, in disused spaces, sculpture parks or any situation exempt from urban regulations. While inventing an architectural genre, Leschelier uses the construction process as a visualization of one of architecture’s internal dimension, which he describes as the accumulation and synthesis of opposing materials: the addition, in masonry, of fluid and solid matter at the same time. The work is a search about this duality. The construction site becomes the place to celebrate architecture’s entrails. The work generally explores the underlying aspects of the construction process, such as the invisibility of physical labor, the savagery of the construction site, the excessive overflow of matter, and the possible evocations of the industrial material. The work claims to be in continuity with some aspects of the minimalist sculpture while employing the processes of actionism, to recover the initial properties of architecture.
Marc Leschelier was a fellow at the Villa Medici in 2017-2018. Since then, he has exhibited his work in solo and group shows or in international art fairs, notably at Art Brussels 2023, but also during Frieze Los Angeles 2022 at Sized, at Alcova during the Salone Del Mobile in 2021 and the same year, at the Venice Architecture Biennale and the Tallinn Art Biennale in 2020. He has realized permanent and ephemeral architectural installations, among others, at Horst Arts and Music Festival 2023, Spazio Maiocchi in 2022 and Piacé le Radieux in 2021.
EXHIBITIONS / BUILT WORKS
2023 Wall Portion Studio Orta Les Moulins (Bossy-Le-Châtel)
2023 All Fluids Container 3537 Dover Street Market (Paris)
2023 Hut Horst Festival (Vilvoorde)
2023 Untitled Art Brussels (Brussels)
2022 Solar Form (Warm Cinema) Château de Vez (Vez)
2022 CC5 Multiple #7 Cloud Seven (Bruxelles)
2022 Lamyxer The SkateRoom w/ Michèle Lamy (Brussels)
2022 Shred The SkateRoom (Brussels)
2022 Demon Spazio Maiocchi w/ Demon (Milan)
2022 Cold Leatherette Sized (Los Angeles)
2021 Aprons with Spillers Everyday Gallery (Antwerp)
2021 Prototype IV Alcova Salone del Mobile (Milan)
2021 Prototype III Piacé Le Radieux (Piacé)
2021 Blocks on Blockchain Venice Architecture Biennale (Venice)
2021 5703 Newtons on Car Jacks Le Box (Toulouse)
2021 OMT (oblique mounting technique) Worst Case Scenario (Paris)
2020 Black Mortar - Worksite IV EKKM / Kai Center - Tallin Art Biennale (Tallinn)
2020 Altar for Jayne Mansfield Villa Noailles (Hyères)
2020 Cold Cream (solo show) Architektur Im Magazin (Vienna)
2019 Solar Form (Warm Cinema) Lake Como Design Fair (Como)
2019 Prototype II Feÿ Arts Festival (Villecien)
2019 Worksite III Parc des hauteurs (Lyon)
2019 Prototype I Unrealized
2018 Worksite II A Performance Affair (Brussels)
2018 Dripping Building Viva Villa (Marseille)
2018 Worksite I Take me I’m yours (Rome)
2018 Villa Médicis (Rome)
INTERVIEWS
2021 Fig Revue
2022 Daidalos
PRIZES AND FELLOWSHIPS
2019 Graham Foundation (Chicago)
2017-2018 Villa Médicis (Rome)
2015 Jorn Utzon Foundation (Majorca)
2011 Le Corbusier Foundation (Paris)
TEACHINGS AND REVIEWS
2020 EPFL (Lausanne)
2019 ETH (Zürich)
2019 Bigli University (Istanbul)
2010 - 2017 Paris Malaquais (Paris)
Operating between the fields of architecture and sculpture, the works refute construction as a rational enterprise, but instead imagine it as a process simply made up of accumulations of matter, shapeless and brutal. The approach seeks to abandon architectural formalism and the desire for a more raw and intelligible reality of architecture. The aim is therefore to reduce architecture to a skeletal state in order to see, like in an open body, its components and make visible the forces that went through it. These buildings are built in an intermediate language, materially unfinished, which is why they are less buildings than a form of pre-architecture.
A cycle of projects entitled: Worksite I, II, III and IV (the last chapter has been entitled Black Mortar) are worksites which produced chaotic and spontaneous fragments of architecture, with the aim of one day becoming the alphabet of a complete building. Other projects such as Building/Prototype I and II are constructions that focus more on the articulations between the elements than on the elements themselves. The crudeness of language is intensified by the enhancement of articulations: chains, concrete reinforcing bars, superpositions and accumulations.
"Hence relieving the blockage was always (...) the object of a feverish pursuit. Ancient societies found relief in festivals; some erected admirable monuments that had no useful purpose." Georges Bataille - The accursed shared
Marc Leschelier is a Paris-based sculptor and architect. Leschelier builds architecture without function, called prearchitecture, in disused spaces, sculpture parks or any situation exempt from urban regulations. While inventing an architectural genre, Leschelier uses the construction process as a visualization of one of architecture’s internal dimension, which he describes as the accumulation and synthesis of opposing materials: the addition, in masonry, of fluid and solid matter at the same time. The work is a search about this duality. The construction site becomes the place to celebrate architecture’s entrails. The work generally explores the underlying aspects of the construction process, such as the invisibility of physical labor, the savagery of the construction site, the excessive overflow of matter, and the possible evocations of the industrial material. The work claims to be in continuity with some aspects of the minimalist sculpture while employing the processes of actionism, to recover the initial properties of architecture.
Marc Leschelier was a fellow at the Villa Medici in 2017-2018. Since then, he has exhibited his work in solo and group shows or in international art fairs, notably at Art Brussels 2023, but also during Frieze Los Angeles 2022 at Sized, at Alcova during the Salone Del Mobile in 2021 and the same year, at the Venice Architecture Biennale and the Tallinn Art Biennale in 2020. He has realized permanent and ephemeral architectural installations, among others, at Horst Arts and Music Festival 2023, Spazio Maiocchi in 2022 and Piacé le Radieux in 2021.
EXHIBITIONS / BUILT WORKS
2023 Wall Portion Studio Orta Les Moulins (Bossy-Le-Châtel)
2023 All Fluids Container 3537 Dover Street Market (Paris)
2023 Hut Horst Festival (Vilvoorde)
2023 Untitled Art Brussels (Brussels)
2022 Solar Form (Warm Cinema) Château de Vez (Vez)
2022 CC5 Multiple #7 Cloud Seven (Bruxelles)
2022 Lamyxer The SkateRoom w/ Michèle Lamy (Brussels)
2022 Shred The SkateRoom (Brussels)
2022 Demon Spazio Maiocchi w/ Demon (Milan)
2022 Cold Leatherette Sized (Los Angeles)
2021 Aprons with Spillers Everyday Gallery (Antwerp)
2021 Prototype IV Alcova Salone del Mobile (Milan)
2021 Prototype III Piacé Le Radieux (Piacé)
2021 Blocks on Blockchain Venice Architecture Biennale (Venice)
2021 5703 Newtons on Car Jacks Le Box (Toulouse)
2021 OMT (oblique mounting technique) Worst Case Scenario (Paris)
2020 Black Mortar - Worksite IV EKKM / Kai Center - Tallin Art Biennale (Tallinn)
2020 Altar for Jayne Mansfield Villa Noailles (Hyères)
2020 Cold Cream (solo show) Architektur Im Magazin (Vienna)
2019 Solar Form (Warm Cinema) Lake Como Design Fair (Como)
2019 Prototype II Feÿ Arts Festival (Villecien)
2019 Worksite III Parc des hauteurs (Lyon)
2019 Prototype I Unrealized
2018 Worksite II A Performance Affair (Brussels)
2018 Dripping Building Viva Villa (Marseille)
2018 Worksite I Take me I’m yours (Rome)
2018 Villa Médicis (Rome)
INTERVIEWS
2021 Fig Revue
2022 Daidalos
PRIZES AND FELLOWSHIPS
2019 Graham Foundation (Chicago)
2017-2018 Villa Médicis (Rome)
2015 Jorn Utzon Foundation (Majorca)
2011 Le Corbusier Foundation (Paris)
TEACHINGS AND REVIEWS
2020 EPFL (Lausanne)
2019 ETH (Zürich)
2019 Bigli University (Istanbul)
2010 - 2017 Paris Malaquais (Paris)