Art Paris Art Fair

Stand D 14 Grand Palais

Past exhibitionFrom 26 to 29 March 2015

Dear Friends of the gallery,

This year at Art Paris Art Fair we asked a collector to curate our booth, and this is what he chooses to show.

The Art of the Ordinary, or, How Certain Artists Transform Everyday Objects into Artworks

Marcel Duchamp elevated everyday life to the status of art by labeling ordinary manufactured objects as art. We might accuse him of a lack of artistry even as we acknowledge his “right to idleness,” yet his ready-mades forced both artist and beholder to adopt a totally new perspective. Everyday things were no longer merely depicted or interpreted, they became a physical and intellectual component of the artwork. Marcel Cahn, Jean-François Dubreuil, and Antoine Perrot exploit everyday consumer items by imparting a new dimension to them. Starting in 1957, Marcelle Cahn (1895–1981) made poetic use of envelopes, post-cards, photographs, tags and sticky labels in her collages and cut-outs. Her personal, private works entail an interplay of self-effacement and presence, orchestrating a powerful hymn to the richness of life despite their fragile appearance. Jean-François Dubreuil (born 1946) employs a consistent methodology to produce paintings that take as their point of departure the print media, especially newspapers. The information is transformed through established rules, while surface colors are governed by a chance operation. Here it is not the meaning that counts, but rather the place occupied by different types of information—advertising, photos, empty spaces, articles, etc.—found on the front or inside pages of a newspaper. The variety of combinations generated by Dubreuil’s method reveals the mass of information accessible to us, as well as its fragility in this constantly channel-hopping world. Antoine Perrot (born 1953) combines ready-made objects with ready-made colors—sponges, brooms, straws, wire, string, labels and other manufactured items are arranged in highly colorful artworks. Freed from their pure use function, they concoct a powerfully multicolored vision of consumer society. All three artists have developed their own geometry of everyday life by employing a similar compositional philosophy that nevertheless yields highly individualized artworks.

Jean-François Keller
Curator, Musée de l’Impression sur Étoffes, Mulhouse (France)

Another part of our stand will reflect the show currently on view at the gallery, featuring two German artists: painter Nicholas Bodde and sculptor Siegfried Kreitner, as well as a reminder of our past exhibition featuring Denis Pondruel and Yves Popet (sculptures and pastels).

Anne Lahumière and the gallery team

Jean-François Dubreuil

Jean-François Dubreuil "THE MALTA INDEPENDENT N°2448 DU 25/08/2005"

Acrylique sur toile 97 X 122 cm

Antoine Perrot

Antoine Perrot "Peinture prête à porter" 2014

Chemise, priplak, poignée 30 x 32 cm

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Art Paris Art Fair. Stand D 14 Grand Palais