Didier Lavier in Paris at Galerie kreo

13 September - 04 November '17

The exhibition Didier Lavier reflects the long-standing conversation between Bertrand Lavier and Clémence and Didier Krzentowski, founders of Galerie kreo in 1999. In 2002, on the occasion of an exhibition dedicated to Marc Newson, they presented Lavier’s work “Embryo” showing the iconic chair by the Australian designer rotated of 90’ and rested on a plinth. The piece was thus added to the French artist playful series of artistic gestures which earned him the title of “happy postmodern” coined by Michel Gauthier, Curator at the Centre Pompidou.

For this exhibition, conceived as a game of dominoes, Bertrand Lavier and Didier Krzentowski combine historical and new works by the artist from all his important series (the painted objects “à la Van Gogh”, the “Walt Disney Productions”, the “superposed objects”, the Frank Stella’s neon-ised paintings etc.) with vintage and contemporary design pieces by, among others, François Bauchet, Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec and Gino Sarfatti.

The resulting dialogues retain the strength of the self-evident and the promise of joyful accumulations: it is indeed the first time that Bertrand Lavier displays his works so closely to pieces of design, a discipline which he “cannibalizes” as soon as he appropriates a Verner Panton chair, a highway signage by Jean Widmer, an armchair by Pierre Paulin and all those consumerist goods (fridge, Ferrari, skateboards etc.), for which he reveals their « sculptural dreams ».

A playful sequence juxtaposing formal, colourful, narrative and oneiric short-circuits, Didier Lavier, with its title reminding of horticultural grafting – a beloved method of Bertrand Lavier, inherited from his studies of botany – wants to sow confusion and collect your astonishment.

Born in 1949, Bertrand Lavier lives and works in Paris. Active since the late 1960s and internationally renowned as one of the most important artists of his generation, he is the author of an open work, endowed with a great formal presence which teases fixed categories, codes and materials favoring hybridization and cross-breeding. The Centre Pompidou in Paris dedicated him an important retrospective exhibition of his work in 2012. His works have been recently presented in « Truchement », the exhibition celebrating the 40 years of activity of the Centre Pompidou held at the
Consortium de Dijon on view until September 5, 2017.

Didier Lavier is part of a series of exhibition centered on the relation between design and other artistic disciplines. It started in 2012 with « Ensemble », a dialogue between contemporary artworks belonging to the collection of Marcel Brient and contemporary design pieces of Galerie kreo.