Oliver Cablat: “Story of the teleported DUCK” – Theory of Evolution

Oliver Cablat Born in 1978, Marignane, France. Oliver Cablat lives and works in Arles, France. After university studies in art, ethnology and photography (1996-2003), Olivier Cablat worked as a photographer for the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Karnak, Egypt. Since 2005 he has elaborated his practice in different fields : artist, photographer, publisher and founder of Galerie 2600, teacher, searcher and Artistic Director of Cosmos Arles Books, together with Sebastian Hau.

France –

In 1930, duck farmer Martin Maurer had a duck-shaped building constructed to house his retail poultry shop in Flanders, a small town on Long Island, New York.

In 1972, Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour wrote Learning from Las Vegas, a book in which they examined the concepts of vernacular, functional and commercial architecture. They identified two main kinds of buildings: the ‘Decorated Shed’ and the ‘Duck’. Directly referring to the Flanders’s building, a Duck is an architecture taking a form which fully expresses its functional or commercial content.

In 2014, Olivier Cablat reactivated the Venturi’s concept by compiling archives made up of his own photographs, digitalised publications and pictures from the Internet. Those digital archives are the basis of ‘DUCK, A Theory of Evolution’, a genealogical study of the Duck and its evolution towards mobile forms that have more or less strayed from the original concept.


The project is also a reflection on the relationship between a work and the forms it can take. And the most significant of the forms taken by the project is a construction made solely from images and informations collected on the Internet. By covering all the angle of the original building, 10 touristic found pictures were used to re-create the previously unrealized plan of the building.

Then it was possible to create a teleported version of the DUCK, 81% size of the original building, only with a few dust of material found on the internet.


Art & Culture Feature- Oliver Cablat‘s DUCK was published by RVB Books, Paris.

Related Posts

Phillip K. Smith III: Lucid Stead

U.S.A – On the weekend of October 12th in Joshua Tree, California, artist Phillip K Smith III revealed his light ...

Alex Chacon: ‘My entire life was on the bike with me’

Alex Chacon was ready to pursue a career in medicine before he discovered the joy of motorcycling around the world. ...

Marc Codsi: The Art of Surrender

Lebanon – Wildly defiant of restrictive categorization, Marc Codsi has been indispensable in the proliferation and development of the fledgling ...

Henry Rollins : Raging Empathy

U.S.A. – Henry Rollins has come a long way since leading the legendary and infamous punk rock band Black Flag, yet his ...

Constant Revolution : Parikrama

India – Parikrama is a legendary Indian rock band; playing basically classic rock based music, fused with Indian instruments like the ...

Kashmiri Kaleidoscope

India – Having seen the Himalayas from Ladakh to Sikkim I thought I was prepared for what Kashmir had to ...

Barmer Boys: Nomad Merasi Minstrels

India –   Blending an emphatically distinguishable medley of traditional and contemporary sounds, the Barmer Boys underline eclecticism as they ...

Adil and Vasundhara-‘Let’s not obsess over being more exotic than we actually are.’

India –  Emaho caught up with diabolical duo Adil & Vasundhara – Adil Manuel (Guitar) and Vasundhara Vidalur (Vocals), and ...

Oliver Jones: Love the Skin You’re In

United Kingdom – ‘Love the Skin You’re In‘ features a series of photorealist drawings that consider the implications inherent in ...