Cognet (Roland)

Roland Cognet lives at the foot of the Chaîne des Puys mountain range in the Auvergne region and teaches at the École Supérieure d’art de Clermont-Métropole. At the beginning of the 1980s, Roland Cognet set himself a challenge, to incorporate into the same sculptural body of work the four “kingdoms of nature” – minerals, plants, animals, and man. Roland Cognet has succeeded in this mission thanks to his skilled craftsmanship. While his oeuvre has since opened itself up to other registers, Roland Cognet’s objectives or roadmap have remained unchanged. Roland Cognet positions himself in relation to other French and American sculptors of concrete or tangible works, including Mark Di Suvero, Tony Grand, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, and Martin Puryear. Parallels may also be drawn between Roland Cognet’s work and the oeuvre of two artists and close acquaintances of Cognet’s, Michael Fried and Étienne-Martin.