The seductive call of consumerism: Sylvie Fleury in Paris

Piles of bronze Slim-Fast tins in vanilla, strawberry and café-au-lait, a pair of Gucci handcuffs, Calvin Klein’s Eternity Now perfume – is the luxury and beauty industry inspiring and seducing us, or perhaps commanding and trapping us?

It’s a question that has long preoccupied Swiss artist Sylvie Fleury, who began exploring the consequences of materialism and the subversion of the status symbol in her first exhibition, ‘Shopping Bags’, in 1991. Since then, Fleury has recontextualised familiar items, including cars, make-up and magazines, in a bid to view them through an unfiltered lens.

The theme continues to drive her in a new exhibition, ‘Sculpture Nails’, at Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris. Here are her beloved signature neons, from Exfoliate, Hydrate, Shield, Purify and BUY ME, which occupy different places on the subtlety spectrum, to the manic YES TO ALL, referencing the computer shortcut saving us the time of having to consider anything individually.

They sit alongside new and historic sculptures, in brass, fibreglass and bronze. Magazines, make-up, Alaïa shoes, a spikily zoomorphic hair clip; Fleury fetishes these items, or she is returning them to their authentic, exhibitionist status – or perhaps she is doing both.

With their often vast proportions and weighty materials referencing quirks of the art history canon, Fleury is mischievously spinning macho mythologies throughout. A yoga mat in bronze, embossed with Gucci’s ubiquitous pattern, is reminiscent of American artist Carl Andre’s industrial floor sculptures. Male references lie in sharp contrast to the polished femininity, particularly in 1995’s video work, Beauty Case, a still from which captures Fleury pushing her beauty case into the boot of a traditionally masculine Buick. It is a moment she cross-references in 2024’s Vanity Case, the artwork's mirrored ground itself an homage to another traditionally masculine reference, Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Mirror Paintings.

‘Sculpture Nails’ is at Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris until 22 February 2025

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