sculpture by Pasquier-Desvignes

(HUDSON, N.Y.) – Caprices, a solo exhibition of sculptures by Bruno Pasquier-Desvignes, curated by R.O. Blechman, will open at the Hudson Opera House on Saturday, February 21, 2015, with a reception on Saturday, March 7, from 5 to 7pm, and run through Sunday, March 29, 2015. On view will be a selection of Pasquier-Desvignes sculptures made from recycled and found materials including wooden wine crates, cardboard boxes, wire hangers, plastic bottles, and bicycle wheels.

Pasquier-Desvignes cuts and paints and reassembles whatever is at hand to create expressive and wonderfully detailed sculptures; for his animation film, “The Song of Roland,” he used corks and toothpicks, and he filled Grand Central Station in New York City and the Centro Cultural Borges in Buenos Aires with his Musical Bicycle sculptures.

“When Merchant-Ivory asked Bruno to create Picasso-like drawings for their film, ‘Surviving Picasso,’ little did they guess that they would get Picasso-Plus drawings,” said R.O. Blechman. “And when I visited Bruno’s studio recently and saw his little metal sculptures, little did I guess that I would be looking at several Calder-Plus sculptures. But Bruno is an artist sui generis, and one who deserves an exhibition.”

Described by the New York Times as “part tinkerer and part storyteller, a cross between Alexander Calder and Jean Tinguely,” Bruno Pasquier-Desvignes was born in France and has made art a way of life. He has lived and worked in many cities, including Jamaica, South America, Buenos Aires, Nepal, Katmandu, and Sydney, Australia, but Pasquier-Desvignes has said that his home in Glenco Mills just outside of Hudson is the only permanent gallery he has ever had.

Bruno Pasquier-Desvignes

In 1998, Roberto Edwards invited Pasquier-Desvignes to Chile. This meeting produced their collaborative book, Cuerpos Pintados, and the creation of IntegrArte, a program of social integration that recycles the discards of the world into art. For seven years he directed IntegrArte in Chile, Peru, and Argentina. Free of cost, IntegrArte inspires the young, the old, the rich, and the poor in the discovery of their own creativity and sense of community. Pasquier-Desvignes now directs the IntegrArte program in Hudson and in Hyeres, France, and recently gave a TEDxHudson talk about his work.

R.O. Blechman is an award-winning illustrator and animator whose art has appeared in such publications as the New Yorker, the New York Times, and the Huffington Post, and in memorable advertisements for such companies as Alka-Seltzer and Capezio.

The Hudson Opera House offers a year-round schedule of arts and cultural programming in the former Hudson City Hall, which houses New York State’s oldest surviving theater. Ongoing programs include concerts, readings, lectures, exhibitions, theatre and dance presentations, after-school programs, workshops, classes and community arts events like the annual Winter Walk on Warren Street.