Matthieu Laurette
Encyclopedia
Matthieu LauretteMatthieu Laurette (born 1970 in Villeneuve Saint Georges, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

) is a media
New media art
New media art is a genre that encompasses artworks created with new media technologies, including digital art, computer graphics, computer animation, virtual art, Internet art, interactive art, computer robotics, and art as biotechnology...

 and conceptual
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...

 contemporary
Contemporary art
Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...

 French artist who works in a variety of media, from TV and video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...

 to installation
Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...

 and public interventions.

He lives and works in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

, Bogotá
Bogotá
Bogotá, Distrito Capital , from 1991 to 2000 called Santa Fé de Bogotá, is the capital, and largest city, of Colombia. It is also designated by the national constitution as the capital of the department of Cundinamarca, even though the city of Bogotá now comprises an independent Capital district...

 and New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

.

Biography

Laurette's work has been shown in venues such as Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...

 Soho, New York (1998), the Institute of Contemporary Arts
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...

, London (1999 & 2003), 49th Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...

 (2001), Castello di Rivoli, Turin (2001), Deichtorhallen
Deichtorhallen
Deichtorhallen, in Hamburg, is one of Europe's largest art centers for contemporary art and photography. The two historical buildings dating from 1911-13 are iconic in style, with their open steel-and-glass structures. It's architecture creates a backdrop for spectacular major international...

, Hamburg (2002), Artsonje Center, Seoul (2002), Palais de Tokyo
Palais de Tokyo
The Palais de Tokyo is a building dedicated to modern and contemporary art, located at 13 avenue du Président-Wilson, near the Trocadéro, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. The eastern wing of the building belongs the City of Paris and hosts the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris...

, Paris (2003 & 2006), Biennal de Pontevedra (2004), P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center
P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center
MoMA PS1 is one of the largest and oldest institutions in the United States dedicated solely to contemporary art. It is located in the Long Island City neighborhood of New York City...

/MoMA, N.Y (2005), Stedelijk Museum
Stedelijk Museum
Founded in 1874, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam is a museum for classic modern and contemporary art in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. It has been housed on the Paulus Potterstraat, next to Museum Square Museumplein and to the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum and the Concertgebouw, in Amsterdam Zuid...

, Amsterdam (2005), Yvon Lambert Gallery, Paris (2005), Kunsthalle & Kunstforum, Vienna (2005), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
The Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Australia is an Australian museum solely dedicated to exhibiting, interpreting and collecting contemporary art, both from across Australia and around the world...

 (2006), MNAM-Centre Pompidou, Paris, (1997, 2000, 2004, 2007 & 2009).

In 2003, he received the Ricard Prize
Ricard Prize
The Ricard Prize was founded in 1999 and in 2006 its name changed to Prix Fondation d’Entreprise Ricard.The prize is awarded each year during the Parisian art fair FIAC by a committee of French collectors to an artist under 40 years old featured in an annual group...

 for the most representative artist under 40 y.o. within the French scene

Laurette uses various strategies to explore the relationships between conceptual art
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...

, Pop art
Pop art
Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...

, Institutional Critique
Institutional Critique
Institutional Critique is an art term that describes the systematic inquiry into the workings of art institutions, for instance galleries and museums, and is most associated with the work of artists such as Michael Asher, Marcel Broodthaers, Daniel Buren, Andrea Fraser, Fred Wilson and Hans...

, economics and contemporary society. His best known works are Apparitions (1993-ongoing), Money-back Products (Produits remboursés) (1991–2001), Citizenship Project (1996-ongoing), El Gran Trueque (2000) and Déjà vu
Déjà vu
Déjà vu is the experience of feeling sure that one has already witnessed or experienced a current situation, even though the exact circumstances of the prior encounter are uncertain and were perhaps imagined...

, The International Look-alike
Look-alike
A look-alike is a person who closely resembles another person. In popular Western culture, a look-alike is a person who bears a close physical resemblance to a celebrity, politician or member of royalty. Many look-alikes earn a living by making guest appearances at public events or performing on...

 Conventions
Convention (meeting)
A convention, in the sense of a meeting, is a gathering of individuals who meet at an arranged place and time in order to discuss or engage in some common interest. The most common conventions are based upon industry, profession, and fandom...

(2000-ongoing).

In 1993, Laurette declared himself an artist in a French TV gameshow called Tournez manège (The Dating Game). When the presenter asked him who he was he replied: 'A multimedia artist
Multimedia artist
Multimedia artists are contemporary artists who use a wide range of media to communicate their art. Multimedia art includes, by definition, more than one medium, therefore multimedia artists use visual art in combination with sound art, moving images and other media...

'. Laurette had sent out invitations to an art audience to view the show on TV from their homes.

Since his first Apparition on Tournez Manége, Laurette has been developing an ongoing series of what he calls 'Apparitions' on TV and in the media. (In French the word Apparition means both 'apparition' and 'appearance'). Among other shows he has appeared in La Grande famille, Canal +, TV (France) (December 5, 1994), Je passe à la télé, France 3, TV (France) (May 16, 1996), Journal de 13h et Journal de 20h France 2, TV (France) (May 16, 1997).

Laurette’s Apparition: The Today Show, NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

, 31 December 2004, (Guy Debord
Guy Debord
Guy Ernest Debord was a French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker, member of the Letterist International, founder of a Letterist faction, and founding member of the Situationist International . He was also briefly a member of Socialisme ou Barbarie.-Early Life:Guy Debord was born in Paris in 1931...

 Is So Cool!)
(2004) renegotiates the critique of mass media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...

: amongst love message banners and goofy signs being held up by the audience of the outdoor-broadcast of the NBC infotainment show on Rockefeller Plaza in New York, Laurette held a pink cardboard sign stating “GUY DEBORD IS SO COOL!”

Laurette's Produits remboursés/Money-back Products (1993–2001) was his method of shopping and being fully refunded based on the basic marketing system of the major food and commodities corporations. He fed and cleaned himself for nothing by almost only ever buying products with "Satisfied or your money back" or "Money back on first purchase" offers. He gained fame in France and abroad at the time appearing on TV and media including in 1997 the French National evening news (Journal de 20h, France 2
France 2
France 2 is a French public national television channel. It is part of the state-owned France Télévisions group, along with France 3, France 4, France 5 and France Ô...

) and the frontpage of respected daily newspaper Le Monde
Le Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...

 with the headline 'Tomorrow we will eat for free' (Demain on mange gratis). In 1999 the Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...

 in UK featured him in an article titled "The secret of free shopping" and in 2000 the Daily Record
Daily Record (Scotland)
The Daily Record is a Scottish tabloid newspaper based in Glasgow. It had been the best-selling daily paper in Scotland for many years with a paid circulation in August 2011 of 307,794 . It is now outsold by its arch-rival the Scottish Sun which in September 2010 had a circulation of 339,586 in...

 named him 'The Freebie King'. In 2001 invited by Harald Szeemann
Harald Szeemann
Harald Szeemann was a Swiss curator and art historian.-Life:Szeemann was born in Bern. He studied art history, archaeology and journalism in Bern and Paris, and in 1956 he began working as an actor, stage designer and painter, as well as doing one-man shows. He started creating exhibitions in 1957...

 curator of the 49th Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...

 he presented Moneyback Life! a large retrospective installation combining enlargements of press cuttings, a truck with an integrated TV wall showing TV clips of his Apparitions/Appearances and a life size wax figure of himself pushing a shopping cart full of Moneyback products.

Citizenship
Citizenship
Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...

 Project (Wanted: Financial Support to Acquire Citizenships)
are a series of projects where Laurette attempts to acquire as many nationalities as possible, asking for donations as well as legal advice and practical support through donation boxes displayed in Museums and exhibitions as well as through websites. At the Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...

 in 2001, he offered non-represented countries national participation in the exhibition in exchange for the country granting him citizenship.

Produced by Consonni, El Gran Trueque (The Great Exchange) (2000), the TV game Laurette has created, with its own copyrighted concept, offerered TV viewers in Bilbao a chance to buy objects in exchange for a car offered by Laurette – the highest offer would be accepted, and then in turn be presented the following week for another exchange, and so on. After a few months the series of swaps finished with a set of six blue glasses that remained unswap.

The Déjà vu - International Look-Alike Conventions featuring among others Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Joanna Aniston is an American actress, film director, and producer, best known for her role as Rachel Green on the television sitcom Friends, a role which earned her an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.Aniston has also enjoyed a successful film career,...

, Sean Connery
Sean Connery
Sir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...

, Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....

 or Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie is an American actress. She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, and was named Hollywood's highest-paid actress by Forbes in 2009 and 2011. Jolie is noted for promoting humanitarian causes as a Goodwill Ambassador for the...

 look-alike
Look-alike
A look-alike is a person who closely resembles another person. In popular Western culture, a look-alike is a person who bears a close physical resemblance to a celebrity, politician or member of royalty. Many look-alikes earn a living by making guest appearances at public events or performing on...

s mingling with the crowd of art people, collectors and real celebrities are organized by Laurette on the occasion of art openings. These events have so far been held at Dia Art Foundation
Dia Art Foundation
Dia Art Foundation is a non-profit organization that initiates, supports, presents, and preserves art projects. It was established in 1974 as the Lone Star Foundation by Philippa de Menil, the daughter of Houston arts patron Dominique de Menil and an heiress to the Schlumberger oil exploration...

 Fall Gala, New York (2004), Institute of Contemporary Art, London (2003); Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania (2003); Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Australia (2002); Artsonje Center, Seoul (2002); Castello di Rivoli, Torino (2001); and Centre Pompidou, Paris (2000).

Matthieu Laurette is represented by Gaudel de Stampa, Paris and La Central, Bogotá (Colombia).

Nicolas Bourriaud
Nicolas Bourriaud
Nicolas Bourriaud is a French curator and art critic. He co-founded, and from 1999 to 2006 was co-director of the Palais de Tokyo, Paris together with Jerôme Sans. He was also founder and director of the contemporary art magazine Documents sur l'art , and correspondent in Paris for Flash Art from...

 describes Laurette as "using society as a catalog of forms...he plays with economic forms as if they were the lines and colors of a painting." (Bourriaud 2002, p16).

Quotes

"I never decided "Oh yes great, tomorrow let's work with media and TV or legal fields ! They are surrounding us, we are part of it, so it seems clear to me that I have to deal with them. I'm just trying to find the best "spots" to develop activities that often interact with different audiences. I'm trying to "hack" or "hijack" contexts, media, audiences, budgets etc., to produce disjunctures. Disjunctures often generate their own tools, which one can in turn appropriate and use."

in Cristina Ricupero. Interview with Jens Haaning, Matthieu Laurette, Aleksandra Mir Publicness exhibition guide, Institute of Contemporary Art (London) January 2003.

"My first Apparition (in French “apparition means both “apparition” and “appearance”) was on the TV show Tournez manège on TF1, a game show based on the American idea of “Blind Date”; two teams, one of three men and the other of two women (or vice versa), were physically divided by a partition and had to choose a partner without seeing them. (This sequence was in fact called “Choisissez-moi!”, “Choose Me!”). At the beginning of the broadcast, each participant introduced himself/herself and answered questions from one of the presenters. She asked me what I wanted to become later in life and I answered: “an artist”. She went on to ask me what medium I worked in… “painting, sculpture?…”, to which I answered “multimedia”. In a context like that, the word I used was completely enigmatic. It probably had no meaning for the general public. In 1993, this word was exclusively used in the art world and not yet with computers, video games, etc. This episode was my artistic birth certificate!"

in Jérôme Sans. GUY DEBORD IS SO COOL! Matthieu Laurette interviewed by Jérôme Sans. Uovo (Milan), No. 11 (June 2006):pp 52–75.

See also

  • Modern art
    Modern art
    Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...

  • Contemporary artists
  • Contemporary art
    Contemporary art
    Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...

  • Installation art
    Installation art
    Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...

  • Conceptual art
    Conceptual art
    Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...

  • Appropriation (art)
    Appropriation (art)
    Appropriation is a fundamental aspect in the history of the arts . Appropriation can be understood as "the use of borrowed elements in the creation of a new work."...

  • Found art
    Found art
    The term found art—more commonly found object or readymade—describes art created from undisguised, but often modified, objects that are not normally considered art, often because they already have a non-art function...

  • Art intervention
    Art intervention
    Art intervention is an interaction with a previously existing artwork, audience or venue/space. It has the auspice of conceptual art and is commonly a form of performance art. It is associated with the Viennese Actionists, the Dada movement and Neo-Dadaists...

  • Institutional critique
    Institutional Critique
    Institutional Critique is an art term that describes the systematic inquiry into the workings of art institutions, for instance galleries and museums, and is most associated with the work of artists such as Michael Asher, Marcel Broodthaers, Daniel Buren, Andrea Fraser, Fred Wilson and Hans...

  • Video art
    Video art
    Video art is a type of art which relies on moving pictures and comprises video and/or audio data. . Video art came into existence during the 1960s and 1970s, is still widely practiced and has given rise to the widespread use of video installations...

  • Visual arts
    Visual arts
    The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...

  • Classificatory disputes about art
    Classificatory disputes about art
    Art historians and philosophers of art have long had classificatory disputes about art regarding whether a particular cultural form or piece of work should be classified as art. Disputes about what does and does not count as art continue to occur today....

  • Net art
  • Neo-conceptual art
    Neo-conceptual art
    Neo-conceptual art describes art practices in the 1980s and particularly 1990s to date that derive from the conceptual art movement of the 1960s and 1970s...


Sources

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK