2012 : SOUVENIRS, GUM STUDIO, TURIN

Since I opened my space in Milan I have been interested in the idea of souvenirs.

The entire program of my first space, located in via Conte Rosso in Milan, has been accompanied by the presentation of special invitations, posters, editions and prototypes. For me, this is connected to the fact that there is no hierarchy between different elements constituting creativity, whether it is a work of art, an exhibition, a business card, a press release or an invitation.

After more than four years of activity I am happy to present a selection of my souvenirs at Gum Studio, a gallery project founded in Carrara, Italy, and now based in Turin. This is the first show in their new space, which for this occasion has been transformed into my shop.

For this project – simply entitled “Souvenirs” – I worked closely with my two* employees Helena Hladilová and Namsal Siedlecki – who also happen to be the founders of Gum Studio – in order to create a situation that can be perceived as a work by Lucie Fontaine, a group show, a shop and an archive, all at the same time.

Artists have always been interested in commerce and how to make art an affordable product. From Hans-Peter Feldmann – who for some time decided to quit producing art and opened a gift shop in Düsseldorf – to The Shop, an initiative of London-based artists Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas, from e-flux’s pawnshop to Lawrence Weiner’s portable works, to Josh Smith’s publishing house to the Pop-Up Book created by Tauba Auerbach, whose d’après I conceived for this occasion.

Furthermore, this is an attempt to think about pre-Internet art history as a distribution of portable commodities: from numerous late Renaissance Italian and Flemish masterpieces, whose small sizes were decided for the unique reason of being transportable, to Marcel Duchamp’s Boîte-en-valise.

Lucie Fontaine

* “L’Anti-Oedipe was written by the two of us, and since each of us was several, we were already quite a crowd.” Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, 1. Introduction: Rhizome.