Vintage Discounter
François Curlet

Galerie Micheline Szwajcer presented Vintage Discounter, the fifth solo exhibition of François Curlet. The exhibition centers on a new series of discount store logos, made of laminated formica tabletops from the charity shop Emmaus, and nightmarish, advertising versions of the native American dream catchers.

The whole forms a keyboard shortcut to the human food chain, as reflected in the words of French singer Philippe Katerine in relation to the sweaters he purchased at a thrift store: I love wearing the clothes of dead people. Here, the film of historical comfort—still present in the memory of the exhibitions Le Vide by Yves Klein (1958) and Le Plein by Arman (1960) at Galerie Iris Clert in Paris—has burst; its fragments are replayed in the lottery of compulsory compositions. They have fallen into another stratum, namely that of vintage, which amnesic archaeologists devour. What remains is poetry, attempting to create a breathing space in the chinks of the profit margin. –FC

François Curlet was born in 1967 in France, but has been living in Belgium for more than twenty years (as a “belgoïd”). Since the late 80’s, he has developed a body of work that ranges from cultural artifacts to domestic objects, in which the world of things and brands is prodigiously dismantled, reassembled and reified. From the philosophical to the trivial, Curlet is interested in reinterpretations, rather than commentaries, in order to raise critical thinking. Shifts in meaning are orchestrated by way of unexpected meetings between forms that mirror our memories and manners. Fugu, a major survey exhibition of his work, took place at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris from 25 February 2013. (Photo credit: Sven Laurent)

December 6 –  January 26, 2013