Overview

What interests me in art is its ability to synthesize. The shape of an artwork, what it makes you think of. The volume it occupies. The action needed to move it. The implied references. This is why I love children, they have no prism or preconceptions and get straight to the point. Art is exactly that.

Inspired by Marcel Duchamps and Piet Mondrian, French artist Mathieu Mercier explores the relationship to modernity, the relationship to the everyday object and the recycling of forms in his conceptual artworks combining humor and aesthetics. 

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Biography

What interests me is the fact that there is no invention in DIY. There is no taking a position, even if there is a possibility. The question is why someone who tinkers, represents, or always remakes existing models, brings the object back to the prototype state already found on the market. The main question is who manages models and for what purposes?

Mathieu Mercier is a contemporary French conceptual artist who uses everyday objects to explore the boundaries between functionality and artistic purposelessness. His work investigates key tropes of Modern art and design, bridging media and styles in its interrogation of utopian movements such as De Stijl and Russian Constructivism, all while engaging mass-produced consumer objects. Mercier questions the larger cultural context within which these objects exist, often referencing avant-garde artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Piet Mondrian.

Born in 1970 in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, France, Mercier went on to study at the École nationale supérieure d'art in Bourges, among other institutions. He has exhibited at many major museums around the world, including solo shows the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, FRAC in Bourgogne, Centre d’Art Contemporain d’Ivry, and the Kunsthalle Nürmberg, amongst others. In 2003, Mercier was honored with the prestigious Marcel Duchamp award.

He lives and works in Paris, France.

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