www.laurette.net / projects / 2006 / LETS MAKE LOTS OF MONEY
show / project
MATTHIEU LAURETTE:
LET'S MAKE LOTS OF MONEY
solo show
1 April- 10 June 2006
Private view : Saturday 1st April 2006, 6:00 to 8:30 pm
> BLOW DE LA BARRA
35 Heddon street
London W1B4BP
T + 44 20 7734 7477
www.blowdelabarra.com
contact: info@blowdelabarra.com
exhibited work
installation view
installation view
installation view
2000
framed cover and page
19.65 x 27.51 in / 50 x 70 cm (framed)
Edition of 7 + 2 APs
1993-1999/present
wall mounted shelves, Perspex free standing displays, inkjet prints
Variable dimensions
Edition of 3 + 2 APs
1993-present
World Map, red map pins placed on the cities where the artist already exhibited (in progress)
8'8" x 13' in / 264 x 396 cm
Edition of 1 + 1 AP
2003/2006
candid camera video shot at Musée National d'Art Moderne - Centre Pompidou, featuring James Gooding
single chanel video with sound for video projection or plasma screen
duration 6 mins
Video DVD+ Digital Beta Master
Edition of 3 + 2 APs
2003-2006
Wall mounted vitrine, press photos by event photographer Susan Greenhill, magnets
39.3 x 78.6 x 2 in / 100 x 200 x 5 cm
Unique work
2003
Lambda print on Dibond
47.16 x 62.88 in / 120 x 160 cm
Edition of 3 + 2 AP
2001
Lambda print on Dibond
47.16 x 62.88 in / 120 x 160 cm
Edition of 3 + 2 APs
2005
DIY instruction piece and signed certificate.
Variable dimensions
Edition of 3 + 2 AP
Contract for commission and purchase of personalised Apparition.
video DVD + digital beta and/or photo set .
Each unique
(£5 banknote)
edition: 100
(£10 banknote)
edition: 50
(£20 banknote)
edition: 25
(£50 banknote)
edition: 10
handwritten and signed banknotes, 2006
1993-2006/present
wall mounted shelves, Perspex free standing displays, inkjet prints
Variable dimensions/Dimensions variables
Edition of 3
(from the Ideological Shopping series)
2006
Framed David Hockney, Eduardo Paolozzi, Bridget Riley, Andy Warhol reproduction in original Tate Modern bag, hook.
100 x 55 cm approx. or 55 x 32 cm approx. each
Unique work
press release
BLOW DE LA BARRA
35 Heddon street
London W1B4BP
T + 44 20 7734 7477
www.blowdelabarra.com
contact: info@blowdelabarra.com
MATTHIEU LAURETTE
LET’S MAKE LOTS OF MONEY
Saturday April 1st, to Saturday June 10th, 2006.
Gallery hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM
Closed for Easter, Friday 14th and Saturday 15th April, 2006Blow de la Barra is honoured to present the first solo show in London of Matthieu Laurette: Let’s Make Lots of Money. Taken from a 1984 Pet Shop Boys song, Opportunities (Let’s Make Lot’s of Money), the exhibition title is also that of a contractual work within the show. The work presents an opportunity to the spectator to take part in the economic transactions that form part of the art world. By using the title of a pop song to name his exhibition Laurette makes evident the themes that are at the core of his research: the examination of the relationships existing between art, media, ‘Spectacle’, celebrity and economy.
In one of his best-known projects, Money-Back Products (1993-2001), Laurette survived for free for almost a decade by obtaining refunds from the money back guarantees of the products he bought. This and other projects in which he infiltrated TV shows, have earned him a talk show celebrity status; he continuously uses and intervenes in the mass media as part of his practice. In London, Laurette is better known for two projects. In 2003 at the ICA, within the exhibition Publicness, he organised the fifth of his continuing series, Déjà vu International Look-Alike Conventions, where he invites celebrity look-alikes to the exhibition opening night, to mix with the art-world crowd. In 2005 as part of the Frieze Art Fair Projects, curated by Polly Staple, Laurette presented What Do They Wear At Frieze Art Fair? where he invited fashion experts Isabella Blow, Peter Saville, Kira Jolliffe, and Bay Garnett, to lead guided tours of the fair, revealing with them the aura that art and fashion add not only to each other, but also to social and economic values.
Works in the exhibition examine the symbolic values of art, money and ‘Spectacle’. Slapstick #1 (Money) is a candid camera video where 5€ bills placed on the floor of the Centre Pompidou wait to be picked up by unsuspecting museum visitors. A work by Joseph Beuys, in which he wrote Kunst=Kapital upon a series of bills, is developed by Laurette, with equation Art = Capital = Spectacle written on GB sterling bills. These are then offered to gallery visitors in exchange for the face value of the bill, with the hope that the value of this bill, now an art work, will multiply in the future. In other pieces, Laurette’s own artistic career becomes the subject of the art work: in Patchwork in Progress - Monographic Show (Selected Works Remaining For Sale), and in Selected Works Currently On Display Elsewhere he presents a selection of his available production up to the present. Untitled (World Map) presents a geographical mapping of the cities in which Laurette has exhibited until now.
Born in France in 1970, Matthieu Laurette lives and works in Paris. His work has been exhibited internationally in key exhibitions including Notre Histoire, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2006); Populism, curated by Lars Bang Larsen, Cristina Ricupero and Nicholaus Schafhausen, in Vilnius, Oslo, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam (2005); Superstars: Celebrity Factor in Art from Warhol to Madonna, Kunsthalle & Kunstforum, Vienna (2005); Publicness, with Jens Haaning and Aleksandra Mir, ICA, London (2003); and the 49th Venice Biennale curated by Harald Szeemann (2001). Laurette’s solo exhibitions include The Today Show, Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris (2005); MNAM-Centre Pompidou, Paris (2004) after winning the prestigious Prix Ricard for the most representative artist under 40 in the French scene; El Gran Trueque, Consonni, Bilbao (2000); and Applaus, Casco Projects, Utrecht (1998).
Blow de la Barra is a West End art gallery showing the work of young international avant-garde artists, many of them previously unseen in London, within an exciting and intelligent exhibition programme.
For further information please contact Rebecca May Marston on + 44 (0) 20 7734 7477 or rebecca@blowdelabarra.com
invitation card
related articles
Morton, Tom. 'How To Sound Clever About Matthieu Laurette'. Arena (London), No 171, (June 2006).
Davies, Lillian. "Critic's Picks, London : Matthieu Laurette - Blow de la Barra", Artforum.com, (New York), (May, 2006)
related links
Blow de la Barra gallery website
www.blowdelabarra.com
Blow de la Barra Society Page
www.blowdelabarra.com/so_06laurette.php
0pening night photos by Dafydd Jones on artinfo.com
www.artinfo.com/partypics/4-12-06/laurette/party_laurette.html
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