Daumot robot 163 – kriki daum

DAUMOT ROBOT 163 SCULPTURE – KRIKI DAUM :

DAUMOT ROBOT 163 SCULPTURE – KRIKI DAUM, The Nancy manufacturer collaborates with one of the major French figures of the contemporary art scene to explore a different universe. This September, the Maison presents its first mechanic design piece: the Daumot 163 robot. Kriki wanted to create an emblematic piece linked to his work, a robot, with the head of Fuzz. Embracing the contemporary culture, Kriki and the Maison Daum has successfully brought together two universes through the exceptional savoir faire.

Kriki, born in 1965 at Issy-Les-Moulineaux, France, lives and works in Paris. In 1984, Kriki founded a group of painters called Nuklé-Art and the electro punk group Les Envahisseurs. With the street and the underground as his art school, he was involved in the beginnings of what is now known as “Street Art”. Immersed in the alternative culture, he was identified from the beginning as one of the emblematic figures amongst the young French painters of the 1980s. Kriki clearly belongs to the generation whose sensibility expresses itself in Free Figurative Art, which he helps to renew.

In 1985, Kriki invented a character, “Fuzz”, a half-robot, half-fetish, polymorphous, omnipresent piece, and a true signature of the artist. This emblematic head would sit on the shoulders of the Daumot 163 robot.

Kriki describes: “My passion for robots and robotics in general has always been there. Robot toys in particular, made of silk-screened metal of the 60s have always fascinated me, and it is what I collect.

I have always been amazed, moved even, by the sophisticated manual work and the French know-how, which radiates throughout the world. On site, at the Daum crystal manufacturer, I reconnected somehow with passion to the arts and craft, in which I find myself. Moreover, as a painter, the exploitation of the coloured pigments and their richness, speak to me. This part of liberty in the final interpretation of the alchemy of colours, as well as their intensity, simultaneously retained and returned by the crystal, is why I sought to fusion the material with light in designing the Daumot 163.

And if Daumot 163 – and I must admit – is a dream come true, it nevertheless remains that living sign and marker that perpetuates the fusion of contemporary art and the French know-how represented by this Nancy manufacturer, nourished by its many artistic collaborations. I like the idea that a robot, which does not exist in a natural state, embodies technical intelligence, skill, mastery, ingenuity, and even virtuosity that still characterizes the art pieces stamped with Daum today”.

The works of Kriki are presented in important and prestigious collections, both public and private, throughout the world. They include the Museum of Modern Art (Paris), Museum of Art and History (Belfort), Inka Bank (Geneva), Museum of Contemporary Art (Shanghai), Fondation Peter Stuyvesant (Amsterdam), to name a few. He has also participated in many contemporary art fairs including the FIAC (Paris), Art Paris, Grand Palais (Paris), Gramercy Art Fair (New York), etc.

His most recent installations include the “Katielo”, a monumental sculpture exhibited in front of the Grand Palais in Paris, 2017 during the 3rd edition of the “Biennale Internationale Métiers d’Art et Création” exhibition.