“Beauty is a Ready-made” Installation view ©Atelier HermèsAtelier Hermès presents “Beauty is a Ready-made”, a solo exhibition by French artist collective Claire Fontaine, on view through June 9. As one of the most controversial artists of our time, Claire Fontaine has self-described as a ready-made artist, critically reflecting on the artistic and political conditions of late capitalism. Instead of creating privileged brands that cater to the culture industry by producing ostensibly new works, she rethinks capitalist ownership by borrowing already existing objects and artworks and giving them an existential use value, practicing an aesthetic of repetition and difference.
The ten works in this exhibition, the artist’s first solo show in Asia, suggest not only contemporary visual culture but also an urgent political agenda. The neon work Foreigners Everywhere, which has been selected as the theme of the 2024 Venice Biennale’s main exhibition, conveys a simple yet powerful message about the still unresolved issue of the other in our midst.
Several works that replace images viewed through a broken liquid crystal screen with light box billboards provide insights into contemporary visual culture, as well as reflections on various issues of our time, such as the underdog, climate disasters, and disasters. Cut-up, a new work premiering in the exhibition, is an immersive floor installation that explores the history and cultural complexities of migration in Palermo, Italy, where the artist lives, while the numerous lemons on top of it are a symbol of the economically impoverished southern part of Europe and a metaphor for migrants as useless and troublesome.
Resonating with thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze and Giorgio Agamben and literary characters like Bartleby and Odradek, Claire Fontaine believes “art has become a place for political refugees.” Reflecting on the current situation of overwhelming political impotency, her practice exudes potent and idealistic energy that offers us the opportunity to face and possibly transform reality through art.
