Arthur R. Cordier

Exhibition view, Art Rotterdam

Exhibition view, Art Rotterdam

Springboard Art Fair

HEDEN Gallery, The Hague

Office plants, borrowed from advertising agencies

“I really hate pigeons” he says, but this sad death brought us closer to the ceiling; such a simple creature trapped dead in a flying position. A pigeon that cannot fly is not a pigeon anymore. Collaboration work with Ioana Ciora.

1646, The Ongoing Conversation #5, Project-space for contemporary art. Group Show, The Hague

For a few years now I have been through disgust, curiosity and attraction toward advertisement signs. I have collected, climbed on a ladder and unscrewed light boxes from local shops multiple times. I actually did everytime I had the opportunity to do so. Most of the time I just want to own the light box because I liked their shape and colors - as any other object of fetish. By collecting light boxes the shop owners didn’t want on their facades, I realized how advertising signs themselves become obsolete. In addition to the commodities they promoted in the past, the commercial signs themselve aged, changed ownership or passed away. Labor time is perceptible and imperceptible by the senses, labor is abstractly contained in every commodity we exchange - works of art included. Yet, commercial signs are the shop gondolas heads upon public space, and end up representing the labor they hide behind.

"We can imagine the advertisement well lit and placed visibly above the highway becoming part of an endless stream of daily consumed images. From this perspective we are not only consumers of products, but also of the endorsing commercials that eventually wither and fade away."

Image of an empty kiosk stall. Back in 5 pasted on it.

Ephemeral commercial light box turned into a lying down sign, lighting its location as only message. This plastical action defines the spatiality of advertising and the structures that composes it. The above ground foundation makes the initial advertising device visible in its entirety. The horizontal tilt causes an unstable transition, between birth of an advertising sign near to be raised and a dead uprooted tree. The current importance of advertising verticality, allowing visibility, is toggled in a cantilevered relation with the ground. The signboard, elongated but alive, only now dazzled the asphalt. Installation presented at the group show and residency FRICHE, in the backyard of a semi-industrial building in Brussels.

Sculpture, installation. 4 Illuminated signs Variable dimensions Aluminum, Plexiglas, LED. 4 Printed booklets 52 to 80 pages, A5 Size