Total Decadence at Champ Lacombe

Champ Lacombe is located in the French seaside town of Biarritz. The gallery was started in 2021 by Lucy Chadwick, former Senior Director of Gavin Brown's enterprise in New York. It is dedicated to bringing an eclectic roster of artists to the Basque coast—somewhere that, until recently, had little in the way of a contemporary art scene.

This summer, Chadwick has teamed up with curator Taylor Trabulus to deliver a group show titled BAROQUE (29 July–29 September 2023) that features works by over 50 artists, including Matthew Barney, Andy Warhol, John Waters, and Farah Al Qasimi.

Chadwick and Trabulus use the term baroque, which refers to lavish style, to explore contemporary excess, including mass consumerism, globalisation, and technological advancement.

Among the highlights is Lily van der Stokker's Yelling older women (2022), a cartoonish pink-on-pink sign with the phrase 'only yelling older women in here / Nothing to Sell'—teasing the fact that angry art by angry, older female artists has no market.

Dressed up in bubblegum pinks and rounded shapes, the Dutch artist's installation is a commentary on the illusion of equality—the euphoric aesthetic is merely a decadent disguise to distract from the continued excess of inequality.