Sylvie Fleury

Sylvie Fleury is one of the most famous artists of our time. Her wit and her critical view of the consumer behaviour of our time have earned her worldwide recognition. Fleury is known for her productions of glamour, fashion and luxury goods. At first glance, her works seem like an affirmation of the consumer society and its standards, but on closer inspection one always encounters a subtle commentary on the beautiful appearance. The smooth surface aesthetics of her works prove to be fragile at second glance, questioning the value of consumer icons, be it the gilded shopping trolley or a marble sculpture of bulky winter boots.

Fleury’s oeuvre refers to the artistic aesthetics of Pop and Minimal Art, without exhausting itself in an “art about art. Probably no artist has ever united the idea of Marcel Duchamp’s Readymade with Warhol’s affirmation of the commodity world in such an unbiased way before. Her male artist colleagues disarm Fleury by playing with their art: Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes replace them with SlimFast packaging boxes, she uncovers striking similarities between Joseph Kosuth’s text art and advertising slogans, and with the unmistakable cuddly squares of artificial fur on stretcher frames, the “Cuddly Paintings,” she ironizes an icon of abstract art: the square of Malevich. Self-confident and not without stylizing her own personality, Sylvie Fleury thus positions herself between feminism and brand fetishism.

Sylvie Fleury was born in Geneva in 1961; she lives and works in Geneva. Since the early 1990s she has shown her work in solo exhibitions at art institutions, including the Neue Galerie am Landesmueseum in Graz (1993); Le Consortium in Dijon (1994); MAMCO in Geneva (1998 and 2008); the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zurich; the Kunstmuseum in Sankt Gallen (2000); the Museum für Neue Kunst / ZKM in Karlsruhe (2001) ; Le Magasin in Grenoble (2001) ; the Sonje Art Center in Seoul (2001); the Centre National d’Art Contemporain in Grenoble (2001); the CAC in Malaga (2011); the Bass Museum of Art in Miami (2015) and the Villa Stuck in Munich (2016).

Her work has also been featured in numerous group exhibitions around the world, including the Aperto show at the Venice Biennale in 1993 and the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1998. Her works can be found in public collections such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, the Daimler Contemporary, Berlin, the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich, the MAMCO, Geneva, the Museum für Angewandte Kunst / Zeitgenössische Kunst, Vienna, the Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, the FRAC Collection, Poitou-Charentes, the Bass Museum of Art in Miami or the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris.

photo © Rico & Michael