AD N°1
With this light box from the Mood Piece series, Joe Scanlan updates the image of the weeping woman in a sober, cold, almost artificial version. In reality, it is a piece of advertising for his work which integrates the notion of commerce, supply, and demand into his practice. It is always through irony that the artist seeks to arouse desire and the notion of profit. In 1999, he designed the miniature sculpture Catalyst, of which this photograph is the advertising image: the artist offers potential buyers a series of transparent acrylic tears intended to be worn as jewellery or make-up on the skin. On the box containing these tears is a sentence that sums up his approach: “Wear Catalyst whenever you want to pretend you have feelings.” This could be seen as a hijacked reference to Man Ray’s photograph Tears (1936), which features a cabaret dancer with tears painted on her face, but Joe Scanlan’s intention is quite different. Through the sale of tears, he proposes that we feign an emotion in order to modify the behaviour of those around us. “Wear one on the subway and someone might give you their seat. Or wear one at a party, just for laughs.”
Text written by Marianne Tricoire as part of the partnership between the École du Louvre and Lafayette Anticipations – Fonds de dotation Famille Moulin.
Exhibitions
Galerie Chez Valentin, Paris (France)
from 04 Sep to 03 Oct 2009
La Galerie des Galeries, Paris (France)
from 27 Oct to 09 Dec 2006
Villa Arson, Nice (France)
from 01 Jul to 24 Sep 2006