Sylvie Fleury b. 1961

Exhibitions
Works
Overview
Mirage, 2021
Mirage, 2021
Sylvie Fleury (b. 1961 in Geneva, CH) lives and works in Geneva, CH. Subversively taking on capitalist aesthetics through a distinctly feminized lense, her work examines the intersection of popular and high culture.
After shopping one day, Fleury stopped into an art gallery and when she set her armful of bags on the floor and claimed them as sculpture. From thereon she began her exploration of the ready made, often in the form of a crossover between fashion and art such as other nontraditional mediums like motorcycles and vinyl banners long before the more recent trend towards collaborations with brands. The commodification of beauty and wellness are rendered in slick, highly produced objects d’art with human-scale makeup palettes and neon signs expressing state of the art aphorisms appropriated from perfume brands.
As she also employs a world of atypical textures like faux-fur, she directly confronts the art historical precedent of monochromatic painted squares for which male artists in the 20th century were glorified. Fleury looks at the marketization of the art world while challenging the space of the gallery and the very process of consuming art.
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Biography
Untitled (gold neon green, white cuddly painting), 2022
Untitled (gold neon green, white cuddly painting), 2022

Since her first exhibition Shopping Bags in 1991, Fleury has had numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout Europe and the United States. Recent solo exhibitions include Kunsthal Rotterdam; Kunstmuseum Winterthur (2023), Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin (2023); Aranya Art Center, China (2022); the Kunstraum Dornbirn, Austria (2019); Istituto Svizzero, Rome (2019); Villa Stuck, Munich (2016); Eternity Now, as part of the permanent collection at the Bass Museum, Miami (2017 and 2015); Centro de arte contemporaneo de Malága (2011); and MAMCO Genève (2008). Her work has also been presented in group shows internationally, including at Pinakothek Der Moderne, Munich (2024); Bechtler Stiftung Uster (2024); Foundation Louis Vuitton, Paris  (2024); Museum der Moderne Salzburg (2024); Les Filles du Calvaire, Paris (2024); MAK Vienna (2023); Mamco Geneva (2023); Mambo Bogotà (2023); The Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach (2022); Kunstmuseum Gegenwart Basel (2022); Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (2022); Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2021); Muzeum Susch (2020); KANAL - Centre Pompidou, Brussels (2020); the Daimler Contemporary, Berlin (2019); Leopold Museum, Vienna (2018); Kunsthaus Zürich (2018); Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zürich (2016); SCHAUWERK Sindelfingen (2014); Kunstverein Hannover (2011); and Kunstverein Frankfurt (2011). In 2018 she was awarded Switzerland's Prix Meret Oppenheim and in 2015 received the Société des Arts de Genève Prize.

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