Yann Vanderme A wall painted with a chair that has been dissolved in paint, a book with a mirror inside, a 33% ascent of the Eiffel Tower, a snowman made without joy, a large, truncated white book: Yann Vanderme’s poetic, seemingly eclectic situations and objects bear the mark of multiple ways to play with boundaries. These are the physical limitations of size, the taxonomic limits of categorization (an object that is not a thing, a wall that is not a chair), the practical limits that are dictated to us or that we impose on our own lives, all experienced as discomfort and which Yann Vanderme highlights, experiments or comically and shamelessly encroaches. The largest volume that can be brought to an exhibition space is a white book (as big as possible). Supposing it is outside in the street and that we want to fit it in the exhibition space, its size and shape should be adapted to the route it must be carried through in order to be placed in its allocated place inside: doors, stairs, corridors; an experience of the physical limits that is familiar to anyone who has ever lugged a sofa or piano up the spiral staircase of his studio apartment. The shape of the large volume will bear the traces of its travelled route, with cuts and scuffs in places. Perhaps there is an underlying metaphorical melancholy surrounding what the artist may lose in terms of too sharp angles or too wide a base by entering a particular exhibition space. The physical constraint imposed on the volume is thus manifestly expressed, whereby it is usually more subtle and concealed, as reality is not too inclined to brag about it. As far as our actions are concerned, standards and limits are everywhere, whether they be dictated by necessity, social habitus or common sense. Dissociating himself from the obvious, Yann Vanderme performs 33% of various daily tasks. Out of the rat race, he does less than half of what is required; 33%, dressed, he will spend the day at home. The collection of actions carried out to the limit of 33% also represents a new category and allows the total reclassification of reality, somewhat in the manner of Sei Shonagon in his Bedside Notes: the acts in question are thus freed from the limit dictated by their prosaic logic. Yann Vanderme also tackles another, more intimate boundary: that of his own tastes. Documentary evidence of an inner disagreement or attempts to adapt to the world, he performs acts that he does not like doing putting together a collection of fairgrounds, petted dogs, and snowmen. In an exhilarating reversal of roles, Yann Vanderme also bends reality at will and muddles it by transgressing its limits. It is hard to confuse a book and a cup of tea, a wall and a chair. And yet he does it: the cup is a book, the wall is painted with a chair, and the table tennis table is transported through a gutter pipe. Emmanuelle Pireyre