From Wild Instinct to Civilized Plenitude
Richard Orlinski
AFTER GAINING FAME IN THE MOST IMPORTANT ART GALLERIES, THE FRENCH SCULPTOR CHANGED FROM BEING ALMOST UNKNOWN TO BEING THE TOP COVETED CONTEMPORARY FRENCH ARTIST IN THE WORLD
His work skyrocketed him. According to Artprice, online French database for art markets, Orlinski boasted the second place as the artist with more sales in France in 2010. Two of his works were among the top art sales in 2011 and from 2015 on, he has been labeled as the contemporary French artist with most sales in the world.
Some credit his success not to his works’ artistic values, but to the fortune of drawing the attention of celebrities like Sharon Stone, Pharrell Williams, Justin Bieber, Paul McCartney, and Andy García. The healthy advertising that comes along with those celebrities made his name became popular.
However, it is now fair to assess his career. It is not just a coincidence that his sculptures are exhibited in 90 art galleries around the world. The key of his work is the notion he perfectly addresses when he creates: the born wild concept, from which a series of amazing beasts have emerged such as King Kong, panthers, crocodiles, wolves, lions, cobras, bears, even dinosaurs.
His wish, he confessed, is to transform negative impulse into positive feelings. It is about going deeper into the wild instincts to civilized emotions. To do so, he emphasizes on the piece aesthetics, made of resin, aluminum, marble, bronze, glass, and gold leaves…With his tireless search of perfection he tries to stress on the viewers’ perception, and then transform wildness, fear, and old-fashioned stuff into affection. Deeply rooted in his time, the French artist tackles the codes of brutality-civilization from the contemporary perspective.
He creates beautiful art, alive and atemporal, just to improve reality. He states that, paradoxically, “it is by portraying animal violence, the frightening fans of the gorilla, or the sharp jaws of crocodiles, that these art works help to channel our human violence, and control our aggressiveness.
“Human beings believe themselves smarter for controlling the animal kingdom. In my works, the creatures are savage because they use violence to feed themselves. Animals kill out of necessity to continue the cycle of life and that is a virtuous cycle. Meanwhile, men wage wars and unfortunately, we get trapped into a vicious cycle. That is why I love to play with manners and somehow improved nature as I believe animals are sometimes more humans than us, human beings.”
Therefore, behind all those flattering lights of fame and Hollywood’s bells and whistles —he cannot escape from them—, there is a full creative conception based on a committed artist who talks about humanity, future, and tenderness emerging from wildness. Another common subject in his works is men throughout the representation of his objects: Stiletto heels, jeans, hourglass, or a leather jacket, to reveal life from inanimate elements. It seems that Richard Orlinski loves contradiction and it has certainly helped him.
Fan of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Keith Haring, Takashi Murakami, and Robert Indiana, his art works sometimes make him converge with the works of Francois Pompon (1855-1933) —famous by the polar bear that made him elite at the Salon d’Automne in 1922. And he has also been nicknamed France’s Jeff Koons due to the similarities with the American’s Balloon Dog. In any case, he has pointed out that comparisons far from annoying him, he loves them.
The Art of Sculpting Himself
The sculptor makes some references to his chaotic childhood in several interviews, marked by his father’s violent episodes and economic shortage. He was born on January 19th, 1966, in Paris. Since he was 4, Orlinski showed interest in arts by shaping small sculptures of animals made of clay, which he gave to his teacher. He studied at the National School of Fine Arts in Neuilly-sur-Seine and signed up for management and commerce in pursuit of financial security, which he achieved by working in the property sector in the area of events’ design, organization and decoration. He scaled up efforts in the sculpture world in 2004, when he put money on his work. He did research for two years and fine-tuned a technique similar to that used in Formula-1 bodyworks. His first art work was born there: a red resin crocodile.
Despite his determination, the art he proposed never sided with established order: “I barely dared to talk about what I was doing,” he said. No doubts Orlinski knew how to improve himself, to the point he managed to achieve the same degree of art of his creatures and open every single door he had ever dreamed of. And leaving no room for doubts regarding his stance, he wrote Pourquoi j’ai cassé les codes (Why I Broke the Codes) in 2017 where he described all the obstacles he had to overcome in his career and how he succeeded by remaining loyal to his precept of not fitting any mold.
Nonstop Renovation
In recent days, Monsieur Richard abruptly shifted his tireless professional career and associated with the renowned Swiss watch brand Hublot to create an art work showing the time. We are referring to a series of 30 pieces of the new Classic Fusion Aerofusion Chronograph Orlinski Mexico, which pay tribute to the history of the Aztec nation by representing the eagle and the snake —two icons in the Mexican flag. For the first time, the green color was part of his palette coating the watch ceramics.
“I try to renovate myself and my work permanently and my mind can think of one thousand ideas per minute. It is a constant challenge. I tried to insert a symbol telling a story in every sculpture I made. Nothing is random or just for the sake of decorating,” Orlinski stated on his work.
His key word is sharing and he defines himself as an artist who stands up for democratizing art, take it out of limited and well-known art galleries by opening it up to the public. He does not like to limit himself. To him, art can be everywhere. “I like to exhibit my sculptures for free and outdoor. It is very important to me,” he has confessed in different media.
As a son of his time he is open to everything, fascinated by the possibility to explore new languages. He has a universal concept of creation even though the sculpture is still the heart of his work. He confesses he is always looking for new ideas and this constant pressure is exhausting. But as he already pointed out once, he will rest when he dies.
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