Jan Kaps, Cologne
Jean-Marie Appriou
Salt Crystals
15 January – 01 April 2015
Installation View, 2015

Installation View, 2015

Installation View, 2015

Pine cone, 2015, 140 × 45 × 90 cm

Pine cone (detail), 2015, 140 × 45 × 90 cm

Chalk formation, 2015, 172 × 70 × 76 cm

Chalk formation (detail), 2015, 172 × 70 × 76 cm

My Father Swimming With Anubis, 2015, 158 × 94 × 76 cm

My Father Swimming With Anubis (detail), 2015, 158 × 94 × 76 cm

My Father Swimming With Anubis (detail), 2015, 158 × 94 × 76 cm

My Father Swimming With Anubis (detail), 2015, 158 × 94 × 76 cm

The birth of salt, 2014, Dimensions variable

The birth of salt (detail), 2014, Dimensions variable

Bath, 2015, Dimensions variable

Bath (detail), 2015, Dimensions variable

Bath, 2015, Dimensions variable

Ray nails 1, 2014, 101 × 104 × 2 cm

Ray nails 1 (detail), 2014, 101 × 104 × 2 cm

Installation View, 2015

Ray nails 2, 2014, 101 × 104 × 2 cm

Sébastien (périscope) I, 2014, 207 × 80 × 70 cm

Sébastien (périscope) I (detail), 2014, 207 × 80 × 70 cm

Bath, 2015, Dimensions variable

Bath, 2015, Dimensions variable

Installation View, 2015

Kiss and Cry, 2014, 61 × 86 × 3 cm

Kiss and Cry (detail), 2014, 61 × 86 × 3 cm

Press release
Before settling down to family life, whilst on the cusp of her second trimester, she travelled the east coast of Africa in search of a great adventure – the kind of story that gets passed through generations of families with unrivalled, heartfelt attachment.
I don’t know exactly how it happened, but apparently it is fairly common practice over there. The urge starts in your pregnancy and can hold you for years – she kept the habit into her forties. I started to think of it as some sort of shamanic practice; I mean, there’s a history of us taking magic from the earth. But layers and layers of history demoted to a mouthful – surely it couldn’t have been good for a foetus to absorb so much. I asked her about it once.
It's a pleasant taste. It doesn't have a tangy flavour or a salty or sugary flavour. It's a bit like eating flour, and I simply cannot do without it. Even now, I awake from my sleep in an abrupt jolt, starving for a bite. I just have this urge to eat these stones.
James Lewis