KÜNSTLERHAUS

BETHANIEN

Künstler*innen

Mathieu Mercier

France

The starting point: manufactured objects, elements of construction and interior organisation lifted from the field of mass utilitarian production, primary material of works that often echoes the historically referential forms (Suprematism, Constructivism, Geometric Abstraction).

[…] Filing, arranging, sorting out selectively. Eliminating. But also inhabiting and residing. Finding one’s place, holding one’s place, staying in place. The destination of all things is a compartment, a hollow, and a hole. We, ourselves, are the destination of things. If the habitat, the interior organisation are the moulds, which fit our existence (W. Benjamin), our existences are for a large part the creations of that mould. Religion, culture, advertising, which are interested in man and never fail to take an occasion to show him a site (you should be here), but leave empty the space between men – a space that even politics has practically abandoned, a shocking truth! By his relationship to banality (effect of literality, treatment of prejudice as a sign of ‘common belonging’, mistrust of judgement, and understanding of the double function – decorative and functional – of art objects), Mathieu Mercier never loses the occasion to point out these gaps and represent them.

(Excerpt from: Pierre Denan, ‘All Tidy’, in: revue MAP, M19, Paris, 2002.)

STAY
10.09. – 26.09.2004