A conversation.
Imagine the meeting of an artist, often linked to the neo geo movement of the 1980s, with a decorator who voluntarily defines himself as one of the last upholders of “great taste”—it is this improbable collaboration that the present work attests, documenting the invitation made to Jacques Garcia by John Armeleder to conceive an apartment in the
Swiss Cultural Center in Paris. The creative register of the former—which extends from Zen minimalism to a neo-gothic overload, and from the exoticism of Napoleon I “Return from Egypt-style” with the extravagance of Napoleon III—echoes through "Funiture Scupltures" and the practice of accumulation and juxtapositions of the styles of the latter, of which the elastic references go from modernism to
Op art by way of Hawaiian folkloric culture.
One of the most important and admired artists of the last decades of the 20th century and of the 21st, John M Armleder (born 1948 in Geneva) has created multiple and fertile bodies of work spanning all artistic disciplines, from his distinctive Furniture Sculptures to his
Fluxus performances within the
Écart collective, from his diverse painting series to his drawing practice, from his striking installations and wall paintings to his numerous works created in collaboration with artist friends.
