Caravan
Solo show
Aargauer Kunsthaus
Aarau, Switzerland
26.08 – 12.11.2017
Curators
Yasmin Afschaf
Katrin Weilenmann
Special thanks to Marielle Chabal, César Chevalier, Lauren Coullard, Marine Coullard, Philippe Decrauzat, Madeleine Schuppli, Aargauer Kunsthaus Museum Team
invitation card
PRESS RELEASE
Arthur Fouray (b. 1990) combines the approaches of major, opposing twentieth – century avant-garde art movements in his work: readymade, Minimal and Conceptual Art, as well as monochrome painting. He also studies current developments in-depth, and it is these wide-ranging points of reference that provide the basis for his artistic concepts.
In his CARAVAN exhibition, the Lausanne-trained artist places his works in the foyer of the Aargauer Kunsthaus, literally at the interface of interior and exterior space. The glass façade designed by Herzog & de Meuron is the starting point for his site-specific intervention in which he plays with the architectural situation of the foyer as well as its use as a place of encounter. The artist covers the museum’s front with curtains made of cotton that are painted bright red. This material was first used by the Abstract Expressionists in the U.S. and competed with linen canvas as the classic picture support.
Arthur Fouray’s diverse reference system is evident not just on a formal level: oftentimes the names of artists who served as inspiration for work are, in fact, mentioned explicitly. His window installation Torres (Pyrrole) was inspired by a group of works by the Cuban artist Félix Gonzalez Torres (1957–1996). In the 1980s, Torres arranged light – blue curtains in an exhibition space; called Untitled (Loverboy), they allude to the romantic relationship of two men. For Fouray, too, the fabric panels are a means of staging. Torres (Pyrrole) is preceded by a work from the #aaafff series. This combination of letters refers both to the artist’s initials and to the shade of colour featured in many of his works, which in the computer-based colour identification system used by Fouray, stands for a precisely defined light violet-blue. The painting shows on one side the titular colour hue, while its other side is covered by a mirror. When the visitor steps in front of the latter, the glass façade becomes a stage, and the viewer becomes the protagonist of this mise-en-scène.
‘INTERFACE. WELCOME TO A FELIX ROOM <3.’ With these words in the present booklet Arthur Fouray provides the motto for his installation. He invites us into a spatial structure that is both confined and porous and in which the curtain and objects function as interfaces between two systems. Felix refers not just to the aforementioned artist, but also means ‘happy’ or ‘lucky’ in Latin. The heart icon on the back stylises this positive message.
Yasmin Afschaf, Katrin Weilenmann
Index