TURBO
Baptiste Debombourg

The First Solo exhibition of the French artist Baptiste Debombourg supported by Nadia Timova, Bulgarian art critic.

Do you remember the turbo wave of the eighties and how it unequivocally left its mark on the industry, and then on the whole cultural situation in Western Europe? In fact, you would most likely link this “notion” and the total effect it produced to some innovations of the car industry, namely the invention that gave additional power to the Formula 1 race cars and was later implemented in most motor conveyance technologies. It caused such a great euphoria that turbo was even imitated through additional tuning of the machine in order to produce a greater sound effect and hence an imaginary sensation of real physical power. And that was indicated explicitly on the “label”. If you remember, there was even a moment when this achievement became an indelible feature of other items, completely different in their intended purpose, mostly part of fashion industry. Upon the whole, in the eighties and in the nineties the turbo found its adequate way of imposing itself as a model of behaviour, as a successful means of self-affirmation, as an alternative recipe for being “something more”. At one point this fundamentally aggressive way of being, that is, of prevailing over others, became a distinctive feature of a phenomenon of East-European origin – a compilative and largely slandered product called turbo folk music flourishing mostly in the Balkan region.

Baptiste Debombourg is a young French artist who was obviously provoked by this sub-cultural situation, actually, this way of behaviour, strictly localized in this particular part of Europe. His experiment is so intriguing because the local artists who dare to pay attention to the phenomenon, that is, to analyze and interpret it, are so far the exception rather than the rule. What makes it even more curious is that this local phenomenon has been viewed through the eyes of the West-European cultural paradigm. By playing with this unknown context Debombourg takes the great risk of falling into the trap of the clichés and their sticky nature. In fact, the problem, as it turns out, is more than generous since it treats mostly models of behaviour, although of hybrid nature. And what particularly attracts Debombourg as an artist is the “pathos” of human behaviour. According to the artist, this pathos in itself expresses something deeply inherent in human mindset and behaviour that goes far beyond the local. It is the desire to be, to change by living through a different situation, by pulling on someone else’s skin, by “tuning” one’s way of behaviour.

Turbo folk music originated in the countries of former Yugoslavia and had to do, to some extent, with the situation created by the war that marked in a particularly brutal way the modern history of the former socialist country. It was practically a kind of Love in the Time of Cholera: the passions provoked by turbo folk blazed up high during the war, as if to inbreathe new strength and cheer to the suffering countries. Moreover, this kind of music could pass unhampered through the borders of the then hostile parties, reminding them, paradoxically, of the time when they were one. Or, as a turbo folk music trader said during the war, “art knows no borders”.

Turbo folk music itself is a strange hybrid between local Balkan and Oriental rhythms and ornaments and techno-beat elements borrowed from Western pop and electronic music. It means that the local moment remains but it has been compensated with the powerful, affirmative “turbo” sound. The turbo element appears as a kind of a “tuning”, not just of the local musical product but also of a certain aspect of the mass culture, attracting them to the field of actual West-European sound and behaviour. This “borderline” form, although largely accepted by the masses, actually provokes a great number of righteous objections on the part of the intellectuals. The accusations include platitude, superficiality and indecency, mostly aimed at the scarcely dressed female singers, objectivistic kitsch and other unaffectionate definitions. What is most annoying in this context is the fact that the main role model remains the macho behaviour that is still typical of the Balkan region. The right of the stronger person has been defined by the possession of attributes that have more power and more glamour. The demonstrations as a whole are of the lowest order, and the turbo becomes a fashionable “accessory” of the new kind of rich men. For his project Debombourg has been initially provoked by the paradox – the injuries from the past regime and its destructive consequences, on the one hand, and the “Western” behaviour largely embraced by the population and giving the illusory sense of “keeping up with the times”, on the other. This seemingly blind imitation is seen by the author as a subconscious critic of the Western society.

As the artist himself stresses, his work is always developed in a certain context. The focus of interpretation in the present exhibition, which is Debombourg’s first individual exhibition in Sarajevo, is in fact this “macho” turbo behaviour that the artist actually questions in his work. Maybe what led him into that direction of reasoning is the development of the sub-genre: the new phenomenon, the music idol from neighboring Bulgaria of Roma descent, Azis, who has transformed his image beyond recognition – his feminine side is the leading one: the singer has implants in certain parts of his body, his make-up and wardrobe are definitely feminine and impressively sumptuous, his hair is platinum blonde. It means that the situation has drastically changed its sign, and the French artist has been provoked. Debombourg is in his element: the principle he sticks to in some of his latest works - destruction and attempt at recovery (product of human mistakes) – we see here as well. His installation has an extremely powerful presence – the wall of the gallery has been broken from the inside in its turbo impulse to “exist” more tangibly, but as a result of the same pressure it is irreversibly cracked. It seems that the attempt at a fundamental substitution of identity in the pursuit of optimal results is always painful.

Nadia Timova, Sofia, October 2007

Baptiste Debombourg’s conceptual sculptures are artistic hybrids about noticing, which is what artists do these days: study the everyday for its reflective potential: how it can be both what it is and seem very different. A spaceship like interior, classical entablatures; miniature handmade slave palettes serve as preciously absurd plinths; a shopping cart is given a floral design, then painted in Cadillac gold; a five-meter-tall triumphal arch is made out of cardboard boxes as a disposable monument; a female body builder mimics a Michelangelo Venus; a functioning multi-colored urinal is made out of plastic Leggo-like parts, bringing Duchamp’s readymade back into use art; furniture smashed to smithereens is painstakingly put back together, the dysfunctional furniture recalling all the king’s men badly patching up Humpty Dumpty.

These are non-art objects transformed into anthropological statements. Although fraught with irony, the works are so well made that irony’s smirk is diluted. And as a progression of works, they exhibit exceptional consistency. Seeing them as evolutionary objects, rather than as historic ones, says something about their relationship to lineage. Transforming everyday material he makes us see those everyday things through the dream they might imagine for themselves. Styrofoam turned into marble, the businessman as hero, disposable objects as art forms, games as ceremony, furniture as psychological accoutrements. These are everyday things we need but tend to disregard. Debombourg puts into them the kind of dream we inculcate for ourselves. Time, history, and memory pass through us like dreams as we pass through them in time.

Jeff Rian, April 2007