How to read an unreadable book
Claude Closky, a visual artist, since 2005 a professor at the National School of Fine Arts in Paris, managed to publish an unread book, in addition to being affected by severe intellectual masochism. It is a commendable performance. Over 200 titled pages Terms and conditions Here is an excerpt: “These terms cancel and supersede all previous versions. It is essential that I fully understand these terms, as I must accept them. In the event that I do not comply with these conditions, the service provider reserves the right to take all necessary measures to protect its interests. » An explanation, useful at this stage. The material of the book is the countless contract clauses that we sign every day with service providers or institutions, isolated and recomposed by topic. Violent organizations, deceased persons, false information about crises and armed conflicts, terms of sale, private messages… Dozens of entries in the maquis of clauses that are completely impenetrable. An absurd universe that bears witness to what drives us in a certain way every day, without us knowing it. It is K. of court case, or Castle Kafka, in a large store of household appliances and audiovisual products, in a police station or administration, internet users, with everything that we are subjected to and that is served to us as a caricature and squeaky and playful.
condemning statements
about the corner
Claude Closky, who we have already mentioned here several times, is not his first attempt. Born in 1963 in Paris, in the early 1980s, with Nina Childress and Pierre Huyghe among others, he founded the group Ripoulin Brothers, a reference to an advertisement of the then very famous paint brand (Ripolin brothers). which is then related to what is called free figuration, the recycling of images from advertisements, comics, the use and abuse of diversion, whether with anger or irony. From the beginning, Closky plays with all codes, received ideas, seemingly innocent and most banal images, signs of goods. It can be a wallpaper showing dozens of items on sale in a supermarket with their prices, photos of flying saucers over buildings in the suburbs…
Although the artist received the Marcel-Duchamp award in 2005 and was present at the Venice Biennale on several occasions, he is also interested in language, in saturation or emptiness. One of his installations presented in 2008 in Mac Val, in Vitry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne), in which we wander a bit like in a forest of words, led us from one speech to another, rhetorical statements about a street corner that sometimes it becomes a trap of meaning. He brings into play loads of figures related to both cosmic time and capital, multiplies websites by inviting dozens of other artists to collaborate on them…
“I seedeclares Claude Closky in an interview, two ways to create a critical distance towards the models that govern our daily lives. Oppose them with a new discourse that will contradict them or else follow their logic and bring it to the point of absurdity. As an artist, I can only choose another method. » HIM
