Bertrand Lavier
22 May 2021—1 July 2022
Bourse de Commerce, Pinault Collection, Paris, France
As one of the first artists invited to exhibit in the extraordinary new spaces of the Pinault Collection at the Bourse de Commerce in Paris, Bertrand Lavier orchestrates the mise en abyme of the relationship between a historic edifice and the contemporary design and content that the building offers the city of Paris. In this atypical exhibition space, Lavier proposes an original and playful “retrospective display” with distinct Duchampian undertones.
In these display cases, the artist exhibits objects and forms that he takes from both everyday life and art history, and plays with these in such a way as to question their value through the assemblage (superposition, inversion, puzzles, etc.), the use of a base, samples, etc. The functional dimension of the object is removed; it becomes a sign, matter for thought. The artist humorously reinvests prosaic and industrial objects, and processes; he explores the very nature of the work, and examines notions like the artist’s signature, painting, the original, and the artistic gesture.
