Survival Kit

The Office

Curated by Pierre-Alexandre Mateos and Charles Teyssou

The Office, started with an offer made by the art dealing company ACL Partners (on Antoine Lévy-Frébault and Emmanuel Bourgerie’s initiative) to set up an exhibition on the occasion of the Picasso Museum opening. Having the legendary exhibition Dada Vorfruhling in mind, our starting point was the toilet, which happens to be the very last room of the space. Organized in 1920 at the Brauhaus Winter in Cologne, this exhibition made the visitor go through the restaurant’s toilet to access the show. Over the course of one month we developed ideas with 29 artists. The absence of a master plan resulted in more than forty artworks that played either with the office’s original setting or the dealer’s day-to-day life.

Blondie and Chelsea, the art dealer’s dogs have been put in charge by Puppies Puppies to film the opening. The trophy piece that is normally placed above the art dealer’s shoulders in the office has been exchanged with Columbian Sperm donor, a rare 1999 signed poster of Lance Armstrong sent by Michael Mazurek. The huge Cindy Sherman’s photography that hangs in the living room has been used by åyr's survival kit as a bed painting decoration. Macbook pro scent diffuser realized by Greatest Hits shares it’s space with an uncomfortable Maria Pergay’s chair and Adam Cruces customized grey and white M&M’s. The toilet has been transformed by Cédric Fargues into a character inspired by the 90’s B movie Look Who's Talking Too, while the storage has been occupied by Matthew Linde’s Centre for Style. In the last room Max Hooper Schneider’s aquarium functions as an anti-stress device on the art dealer’s desk.

Artists:
Cédric Fargues, Adam Cruces, Philipp Timischl, Martyn Reynolds, Josip Novosel, Amalia Ulman, Max Hooper Schneider, Aidan Koch, Adriana Ramić, Rasmus Myrup, Mohamed Namou, Matthew Linde, Oliver Fairhurst, Puppies Puppies, Greatest Hits (Gavin Bell, Jarrah de Kuijer and Simon McGlinn), Michael Mazurek, Donna Huanca, Jasper Spicero, Anna Solal, åyr (Fabrizio Ballabio, Alessandro Bava, Luis Ortega Govela and Octave Perrault), Rolf Nowotny, Sarah Ortmeyer, Emanuele Marcuccio, Emilie Pitoiset, Alex Vivian, Kim Farkas, Abercrombie & Fitch, David Stjernholm, Samia Mirza, Thomas Julier.