Carte Blance to John M. Armleder: From the Museums Collection
15th November '08 - 25th January '09
Musée D’Art Moderne de Saint-Étienne Métropole
La Terrasse, St-Etienne France.
Since the early 90s, the Saint Etienne Metropole Museum of Modern Art has led an
active policy in acquiring design pieces and today possesses one of the biggest collections in France (1200 items).
It extends to all the application fields in design, from the toothbrush by Philippe Stark to architectural objects such as the Bulle six coques [Six shell bubble] by Jean Benjamin Maneval.
For this year’s Design Biennale The Museum of modern Art invited Swiss artist John M. Armleder to select a number of objects from its design collection, commissioning him to set up an exhibition.
While playing around with perceptual ambiguity in his work, Armleder uses notions of decor and objects to act as guiding lines to his creations. The random chance elements, and the accidental nature constitute the backbone of his work, an aspect clearly evidenced throughout this exhibition.
While transforming the white cube environment with decorative wallpapers and metallic grey paint, Armleder sets up the perfect scenario for his juxtaposing of design object and painted canvas, putting into question both identity and context.
View of the Exhibition "Entablature" by Roy Lichtenstein, 1975 and "Chaise Longue" by Bruno Mathsson 1935. Photo: Y. Bresson
View of the Exhibition "3200 carrés" by Francois Morellet, 1957 and "Bibliothèque double face pour la Maison du Mexique" Chalotte Perriand 1953. Photo: Y. Bresson
View of the Exhibition "Two panel: blue-yellow" by Ellsworth Kelly, 1970 and "Fauteuil MAA" by George Nelson, 1958. Photo: Y. Bresson
