BERTRAND LAVIER

Although French post-modern philosophers had a profound impact on American art during the 1980s, concepts such as simulacra and appropriation had less of an influence in their country of origin. The work of Bertrand Lavier, however, is an exception. Thanks to the heritage of Marcel Duchamp and the Nouveaux Réalistes, Lavier was able to give the art of the found object a typical French touch. Since the late 1960s, Lavier has reflected upon the relationship between painting and sculpture, representation and abstraction, life and art. An overriding characteristic of his work is its tongue in cheek attitude. In order to shape his ideas, Lavier developed a series of ‘demonstrations’: methods and strategies that enable him to question our intellectual baggage and to disrupt our most entrenched visual habits. His best-known intervention is to cover everyday objects with what he refers to as typical ‘Van Gogh-brushwork’. With this act, banal objects become artworks but, even more importantly, the object becomes a painted image of itself. Paradoxically, the representation of reality only occurs when the original object is hidden from view and completely disappears. Another ‘demonstration’ consists of combining two different objects in an absurd associative manner, such as a sculpture of Alexander Calder placed upon a radiator with an identical brand name, or La Bocca (Dali’s famous lip-shaped sofa) balanced upon a white freezer manufactured by Bosch.