Ground floor. Boon Monceau.
"In Conversation" frames design and art installations as a dialogue rather than an isolated situation that analyzes how spatial proximity generates meaning. In the pairing of Gregory Ryan’s Rio Tinto and ERM’s C Bar Cabinets, this curatorial strategy brings together two distinct approaches to system-based making. Ryan translates natural landscapes into sculptural forms shaped by geological logic, while ERM constructs metal works through structured fabrication processes. Placed within the same space, their works become a comparative study of natural versus industrial systems.
The most relevant framework for the In Conversation series is Edward T. Hall’s theory of proxemics and its application to the gallery space. Hall’s concept argues that humans' perception of space, although derived from the sensory apparatus that all humans share, is modeled by culture. In an exhibition context, Hall’s proxemics become a way of reading how spatial distance between artworks actively shapes visual and interpretative relationships. The approximate four meter separation between Ryan’s Rio Tinto and ERM’s C Bar Cabinets situates them within what Hall defines as the public zone. Despite what was by Hall considered a comfortable and uninvasive distance, rather than producing detachment this distance generates a controlled relational field in which the works remain visually and conceptually in dialogue.
Named after the biggest copper mining company in the world, Rio Tinto measures 180 cm in height, 180 cm in width, and 20 cm in depth and features a rich mix of earthy reds, rusty oranges, deep browns, and metallic tones with contrasts of darker shadowy areas and brighter warm highlights. Similarly, the two C Bar Cabinets on Rio Tinto’s left made of aluminium that appears uneven in places, marked by subtle irregularities and textural variation, share this metallic and reflective quality. The spatial configuration of these works does not establish a fixed hierarchy but instead produces a shifting perceptual structure. As the viewer moves through the space, attention shifts between the works, activating what art theorist Claire Bishop describes as the production of meaning through embodied movement and physical encounter. There is no prescribed viewing sequence, rather perception is constructed through circulation where proximity and angle play major roles in reframing the relationship between both the pieces amongst each other and the relationship between the pieces and the viewer. Since the works are incredibly reflective, an important aspect to note with this installation in particular is the role of light. Light here acts as an active participant in painting the pieces, continuously changing which details it wishes to heighten or to shade. These atmospheric dynamics reinforce the relational conditions of material. Gregory Ryan’s larger and materially dense work contrasts with the reflective and more optically responsive qualities of ERM’s pieces. Depending on where one situates themselves in the room, there is a subtle tension in visual authority. However it does not resolve into dominance but rather into a balanced field of co-presence. From a Bachelardian phenomenological perspective, as the viewer moves closer, material detail becomes increasingly legible, while at a distance the works merge into a more ambiguous, shared spatial composition. The result is a fluctuating perceptual condition in which intimacy and scale are constantly renegotiated.
Ultimately, the pairing reframes both practices as parallel systems of formation, one grounded in natural processes of erosion and landscape transformation, the other in industrial and fabricated precision. Rather than existing as separate objects, the works operate as a relational system in which meaning emerges through spatial tension, proximity, and co-presence. In this sense, the exhibition constructs what can be understood as a “third space” of interpretation, in which light, distance, and movement become active agents in the production of meaning.