Synopsis
Advertising slogans, punning neon signs and movie studio logos populate Swiss artist Stphan Landrys (19602009) world of fiction and commercea Hollywood idyll in which tout va bien (everything is fine). Baring the underlying mechanisms of the happiness industry through exaggeration, Landry turns this popular art into an intimate portrait of the artist and his everyday environs. This first in-depth publication of Landrys artistic legacy was inspired by the museum exhibition Everythings fine M/2 and Stphan Landry, at the Muse Jenisch Vevey, Geneva (2017). The exhibition focused on two critical players in the 1990s Swiss art scene, Landry and the collective M/2, and a time when issues of gender, identity and politics were front and center. Over 200 color drawings made during his short but prolific career, ranging from a Warholian alphabet to themed installations of intimate drawings, were executed in gouache, ink, glaze, synthetic varnish or felt pen. Landrys signature mischievousness marks these iconic works with a sensuality that is less sumptuous than explicit.
About the Author
L'univers de l'artiste suisse Stéphan Landry (1960-2009) est quasi exclusivement celui du dessin. Très personnelles, le plus souvent de petit format, les œuvres trahissent l'acuité du regard d'un artiste à la très grande sensibilité, qui perçoit le monde dans toute sa complexité. C'est dans les carnets réalisés à Rome en 1998 que l'artiste puise la matière de son œuvre à venir. Ils vont ainsi devenir des répertoires de « mythologies » rattachées à la culture populaire, mais aussi littéraire. Chez l'artiste, le double, le multiple, le complexe apparaissent à chaque instant : ici un dessin sur papier calque, là son double, puis son reflet inversé. Dans ces jeux de mots récurrents et ces constants détournements d'images, subtilité et ambiguïté ne cessent d'affleurer.
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