Yak Rivais, Art critic

About Funny Birds exhibition at the SEMA (Paris)

Three boxes. Official art / Art on classic supports / Art on new supports. And a “raccoon” tote called “outsider art”. Alibi of an expression from nothing, without “history” or “culture”, apt to interest without intermediary. A “virgin” art for “virgin” fans. Milo Dias, caricaturist ceramist, turns to nature. He recovers driftwood, roots. He makes them birds. Is he thinking of Chaval (“Birds are idiots”), Cesar (on roller skates), Quentin Garel and his monumental beaks?

It is, through legitimate derision, the ephemeral that he tracks down in worn-out wrecks. Between fascination with volumes capable of unbalancing certainties, and temptation to give meaning to the risk of weakening the incipit, Milo Dias negotiates. Putting in order would require the consummate logic of art, would open a false exit door. Anecdote should be avoided. The “funny birds” are first sculptures and dream machines.

Some are in bronze. Awareness of the fragility of the works? Will to mandate the potential of meditation in a noble material? By play of confrontation, as one strikes two flints, the spark is released. “To paint a portrait of a bird”, Milo Dias applies Prévert’s recipe, without the need for a cage: just close your eyes. “I think you will find it difficult to recognize me,” wrote Erik Satie to a friend: “I let my eyelids grow.”