ART-PRESENTATION: Sylvie Fleury-ÎÔ

Sylvie Fleury is known for her mises-en-scène of glamour, fashion and luxury products. Although at first glance her works may seem like an affirmation of the consumer society and its values, on closer inspection a more subtle commentary on superficial beauty becomes apparent. Her objects, wall pieces, pictures and installations assume an intrinsic value far exceeding the mere affirmation of brand names.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Kunstraum Dornbirn Archive

Sylvie Fleury stages luxury items from our consumer world and places them in new contexts. In her exhibition “ÎÔ” at Kunstraum Dornbirn  she critically examines questions about the power of status symbols, which have meanwhile become fetishes of consumption. Her works are classified between pop art and conceptual art: simply by moving to a museum, she transfers objects from the modern world of goods, such as a gold-plated shopping cart or shopping bags filled with luxury items, to art. Since the 90’s the artist has been dealing with fashion, glamour and power. With her art, she looks behind the facades of beautiful appearances and questions the standards of value of our consumer society. As a self-confessed “fashion victim”, Fleury does not exclude herself from her criticism. Sylvie Fleury’s bronze sculptures always demonstrate detailed knowledge of the artistic aesthetics of Pop Art and Minimal Art, without her work developing into Art on Art. No artist has probably ever combined the idea of Duchamp’s Ready Made with Warhol’s affirmation of the consumer world in such an unbiased way. In Fleury’s sculptures, the profane assumes an aura of sanctity. With a particular relationship to space, a clever sense of staging, a displacement of signs and objects, a divergence of codes, perspectives or lifestyles, and a strong existence of the body between presence, loss and withdrawal: Sylvie Fleury’s work constantly blurs and reinvents our relationships with works of art. By blurring the lines between art and fashion her intent is not to open up the realm of art to that of fashion, rather it’s to point out the difference between the two: one cannot have an aesthetic experience by looking at fashion. Objects, such as art, bring into play the intellect and, at the same time, invite us to reflect on what the cognitive process of understanding itself means.

Info: Kunstraum Dornbirn, Jahngasse 9, Dornbirn, Duration: 28/6-13/10/19, Days & Hours: Daily 10:00-18:00, www.kunstraumdornbirn.at