Pierre Bismuth
09/09/2010 > 06/11/2010
Opening on 09/09/2010, from 7 pm to 9 pm
PIERRE BISMUTH's new exhibition, as a matter of fact titled, according to the usual expression, The gallery is pleased to invite you to PIERRE BISMUTH's new exhibition, consists of a set reproducing at scale 1 the entrance desk of the above mentioned gallery, with its workstation and collection of artists' catalogs.
Built on a platform in the center of the exhibition space, this set uses the same techniques as in the film industry: wood panels, printed trompe-l'oeil as background, elaborated lighting but apparent wires. Designed, as that of a cinema studio or theatre stage, to be seen from a certain angle, in this case from the gallery entrance, it doesn't aim at reproducing reality, but at creating a replica credible at first sight, which reveals its true nature when one turns around. Inside, an assistant keeps busy, or looks like she is, with office work, typing on her computer or answering the phone, thus creating a doubt as to the nature of her activity – impassive performance or actual working? – as well, consequently, as that of the assistant at the actual entrance desk. Which one to ask for information on the show?
Pursuing his strategy of destabilizing spectators' pre-established codes of perception in order to prevent public complacency and force a modicum of criticality, PIERRE BISMUTH tackles here the very space of the gallery where he is showing. Directly inspired by the principle of Brechtian distancing, precisely aimed at disrupting the passive perception of the viewer by introducing elements of strangeness, he uses a method that is dear to him, repetition, to turn the gallery's premises into a set and its office work into a fiction.
More than just a sculptural installation, PIERRE BISMUTH offers here, with his usual sense of humor, a staging of the reality just nearby, as non-spectacular as it is – or, more accurately: precisely because it is so non-spectacular –, which ends up revealing it. In doing so, he historicizes the gallery as well as he reveals mechanisms at stake in cultural venues. Producing an art piece by copying a trivial detail that is not art, radically playing on a deceptive rope,
PIERRE BISMUTH withstands the obligation imposed on the artist to 'do the show' and to produce something necessarily new, so pressing since art has become a part of the cultural entertainment industry.PIERRE BISMUTH was born in 1963 in Paris. He leaves and works in Bruxelles. His work was recently shown in solo exhibitions. at Fremantle Art Center, Perth; at British Film Institute, London; at Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; at Kunstmuseum, Thun; At Villa Arson, Nice; at Santa Monica Museum of Art; and also in exhibitions of the New Museum group, New-York; at Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris and Metz; at ICA, London and at Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris in the Louvre.