©François Curlet
° 1967
Lives in Brussels (BE), born in Paris (FR).
François Curlet (°1967) is born in Paris and lives in Paris, Brussels and the French village Piacé. Since the late eighties he has developed a body of sculptural and graphic work centred on a contemporary notion of thingliness: the commercial world of goods and brands, which he never ceases to deconstruct and reconstruct.
His fields of interest are wide-ranging, eclectic and unpredictable. This, and some of his artistic attitudes – his principle of reversal, his self-deprecating humour, his attempt to make his work accessible to a large audience and his criticism of ‘professionalism’ in contemporary art – places him in the tradition of Fluxus. It should therefore be no surprise that Curlet himself is a great admirer of Robert Filliou, one of the leading Fluxus figures.
Curlet often changes the scale of everyday objects by making them smaller or bigger than they were, or otherwise obscures their function by putting them together to create unrecognisable new objects. Yet his interest in the economy and economic values of these objects remains undiminished, and this keen economic sensibility certainly explains his attachment to the art of the multiple. The ‘democratic’ potential of (mechanically) reproduced art is a formative concern in his artistic practice.
His objects and images bring about shifts in meaning by instigating unexpected meetings between forms that provoke the ‘wrong’ associations. For all their deliberately obvious absurdity and tongue-in-cheek humour, Curlet’s works become contemporary allegories.
>François Curlet, Djellabas Nike, Fila, Adidas, 1998.Installation.
>François Curlet, Object publicitaire , 2003.Object, enamelled plate, 42 x 34 x 1 cm.
>François Curlet, Chanter l'enfer [To Sing Hell], 2010.Installation, wood, drapery, perspex, metal, aluminium, 120 x 30 x 40 cm, 40 x 33 x 7 cm, 5 x 5 x 5 cm.
> Exhibition: El Hotel Eléctrico – Rooms available . 21 February 2014 - 11 May 2014.
> Exhibition: EXTRA MUROS: Geel – Middle Gate II – The Story of Dymphna. 15 September 2018 - 04 November 2018.
> Exhibition: EXTRA MUROS: Visite Bornem - Gedeelde Ruimte. 03 May 2014 - 25 May 2014.
> Exhibition: LODGERS #5 Le Salon: KATSALON. 31 January 2016 - 16 April 2016.
> Exhibition: Superdemocracy – The Senate of Things. 01 October 2017 - 31 October 2017.
> Exhibition: The collection XII – Derive/Support/Surface (French art in the M HKA collection) – Autumn 2005. 27 August 2005 - 05 November 2005.
> Exhibition: The collection XIV – Spring 2006. 25 February 2006 - 23 April 2006.
> Exhibition: The collection XX: Jubilee. Who's got the Big Picture?. 29 June 2007 - 18 November 2007.
> Exhibition: Urgent Conversations: Antwerp – Athens, Part IV: Dealing with Catastrophe, The Flow of the World. 18 November 2017 - 07 January 2018.
> Exhibition: Urgent Conversations Athens - Antwerp. 31 October 2016 - 05 February 2017.
> Ensemble: Collectie Vlaamse Gemeenschap.
> Ensemble: Dealing with Catastrophe.
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> Ensemble: DIVERSITAS I.
> Ensemble: GEWELD | VIOLENCE.
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> Ensemble: M HKA_DEFAULT_WORKS.
> Ensemble: Middle Gate.
> Ensemble: NUCLEUS.
> Ensemble: SUPERDEMOCATIE / SUPERDEMOKRATIE / SUPERDEMOCRACY.
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> Ensemble: To Sing Hell.