AUDE PARISET
A bōAt[] A Promise

21. 05. 2014 – 10. 08. 2014

Opening: Tuesday, May 20, 2014, 7 pm

The Kunstverein Nürnberg - Albrecht Dürer Gesellschaft is delighted to announce the first institutional solo exhibition of Aude Pariset (b. 1983, Versailles; lives in Berlin) in Germany.

In her work, Aude Pariset deals with the various methods of image reproduction available for users in the digital age. The medium of photography stands at the center of her work, which she brings into variable and ephemeral representations through color prints on various materials as paper, textiles or plastic. The artist sources her motifs from advertising images for consumer objects such as cosmetics, technological devices or fashion goods and edits them into digital collages. Thereby she consciously utilizes the seduction strategies of advertising and creates her own visuals in response to the instant availability of images and their rapid disappearance within online image culture. Recently Pariset has been working with large-format textile prints recalling advertising banners. In other works, she manipulates images to fit in the design of purchased or found objects. By combining digital images and physical objects, she contrasts the visual languages of the product industry with individual gestures that scrutinize the social meaning of efficiency and optimization. The perception of speed and technological advancement she translates into tangible objects that often belong to the sphere of comfort.

In her solo exhibition at the Kunstverein, Aude Pariset is showing two new bodies of work that respond directly to the architecture of the exhibition space, that is part of the former administration building of the Bavarian dairy distribution, designed by the German architect Otto Ernst Schweizer and built in 1930. Structured by numerous glass windows, the gallery space can by described as a showcase, in which the exterior space — an urban passage with a steady flow of traffic, a hotel and an office complex — is strongly present. Taking the idea of transit as a point of departure, Pariset has placed three windsurfing sails in the exhibition space. Their original fabrics have been replaced with newly sewn see-through sails, printed with photographs of contemporary architectures of international pharmaceutical corporations. Imitating the common layout of sail designs, the images appear in twisted, fragmented views. As a result of combining the different textures of architecture and landscape on the fabric, the situation of the real space become mirrored.

Pariset’s exhibition title A bōAt[] A Promise refers to the name and the slogan of a large health care products company. She altered the typography of the lettering and thus, appropriate it for her own purpose. In this way, the displayed windsurf sails and their potential function as a boat becomes emphasized — as a means for transportation or a literal ‚vessel’ of meaning. Merging the public relation images of the pharmaceutical industry with an implement for leisure and sport performance, Pariset subtly addresses the influence of bio-politics and how our social life is marked by the desirability of youth and health. The sails unfold how the expressions of individuality and freedom, as symbolized in surf culture, are permeated by product promotion and the aesthetics of corporate sponsoring. In a further work, Pariset directly set up a flag outside in front of a hotel across of the street of the Kunstverein, that is advertising her own show.

In a series of small-format paper works mounted on dibond, Pariset presents in the exhibition space abstract grid compositions that have been printed on various type of paper. Arranged as if in a scientific comparative test, the printed fields will bleach over the course of the exhibition, faded by the sun. Just like the windsurfing sails’ motifs that appear distorted and offer a changeable perception, the prints record the interference and transiency of digitally reproduced images.