Rébus... (les choux)

plaster casts of Rodin's The Thinker, graphite, pencil leads
varying dimensions

“Rébus…(les choux),” 2001, is an installation composed of hundreds of small plaster casts that reproduce Auguste Rodin’s iconic work, The Thinker. These miniature sculptures are coated with graphite, giving them a metallic appearance—a reference to the material used by sculptors or to toy soldiers.

A pencil lead protrudes from their heads, like a thought bubble.

Morgane Lépinay works with borrowed words, associations of ideas, and accumulations of signs. In Rébus…(les choux), thought is linked to writing—to the very act of creating the work, like a mise en abîme of the creative process. The multiplication of the casts, their material concentrated within a square perimeter, and the color of the graphite demonstrate the energy of thought—of gray matter. A thought process that can sometimes be laborious, as the title of the work humorously suggests with its reference to the popular expressions “se prendre le choux” or “être dans les choux.”

Alexandra Gillet