W6

Materials: cast bronze, chrome-plated. Edition 6/8. Dimensions: 62 x 62 x 31cm
b. Geneva, Switzerland 1961
Lender: evn collection, Maria Enzersdorf, Austria

At the entrance to the exhibition Paper, Rock, Scissors is a cast of a Formula 1 tire made of chrome-plated bronze. It is the sculpture W6 by Sylvie Fleury. The artist gained recognition in the 1990s by presenting high-end fashion brand products along with their shopping bags in gallery spaces. This was seen as an ironic commentary on the male-dominated artworld. Sylvie Fleury’s works allude to the pop culture desire for luxury goods. The artist combines this with forms she borrows from fields she views as traditionally male, such as space travel or motorsport. Sylvie Fleury herself says that she enjoys playing with ostensible opposites, such as male or female, and then tries to find a new balance. (1) (2)

Are Fleury’s works a critique of consumer behavior or of the urge for technological conquest? Her presentations remain ambivalent, seducing with precious materials and fabrics and thereby revaluing objects from the consumer world. In the Paper, Rock, Scissors exhibition at the KinderKunstLabor, W6 is shown in connection with Hans Kupelwieser’s work Untitled, a relief installed next to it on the wall. Kupelwieser’s work is made from car-tire inner liners, a material manufactured by Glanzstoff, a St. Pölten-based company. Both Fleury’s and Kupelwieser’s work use industrially manufactured materials. Nevertheless, different motivations and perspectives inform the works. Fleury’s approach can be understood more in terms of mirroring consumption. With Kupelwieser, by contrast, materials from car tires are transformed into a poetic-abstract narrative absent of symbolic meaning.

Mona Jas