Sylvie Fleury

WRITTEN ON THE WALL

KUBUS

Swiss artist Sylvie Fleury combines in her work divergent topics like esotericism and trash, fashion and motorsports, science fiction and art history. By connecting separate spheres she often plays off gender differences against each other: Soft, feminine bodies counter the masculine geometry of Stacks by Donald Judd. In advertising slogans for cosmetics she discovers an aesthetic relationship with the text pieces of Joseph Kosuth. Phallic rockets are covered with long-haired fake fur, Andy Warhol's Brillo Boxes are replaced by packages of the dietary supplement Slim Fast. A slow motion version of a film of a racing victory celebration turns into a Zen meditation on speed.

At the KUBUS, Fleury presents Astarté's Cave (2008). This wall piece is based on photographs of a dripstone cave which the artist took in Vietnam. The title refers to the love and fertility goddess of antiquity of the same name. The panorama view on wall paper combined with the reference to the female deity transform the rigid and squarish architecture of the KUBUS into something of a “pleasure grotto” or “magic site” for natural religious rituals. Furthermore, Fleury places into the centre of the space her sculpture Labrisrynthe (2008) which resembles a monumental shark tooth in shiny silver, an object, which is revered as a talisman in Polynesian culture.

Sylvie Fleury (born 1961 in Geneva) ranks among the most important artists of her generation. Last year her work was exhibited in a large retrospective at MAMCO in Geneva.

Sylvie Fleury's presentation marks the second part of WRITTEN ON THE WALL, a series of walls pieces at the KUBUS.

Curator: Sven Beckstette