Guy de Cointet
07 Dec 2013 - 23 Feb 2014
GUY DE COINTET
Publications
7 December 2013 – 23 February 2014
Guy de Cointet (1934–1983) was an artist who lived in Los Angeles most of his life, where he developed a polymorphic corpus of works. His practice could be described as ‘theatre in an expanded field’. Guy de Cointet has written more than twenty plays, half of which were staged during his lifetime. As a Frenchman in the U.S.A. and a perfect observer of the society of entertainment with its soap operas and body building, he created a body of work that investigates the borders between high and low, performance and sculpture, theatre and everyday life. Publications were one way for de Cointet to express his interest in cryptography with which, just like with his drawings and plays, he created impenetrable puzzles of letters and numbers. The publications presented perfectly illustrate his love of interpretation and decoding. The artist’s use of enigmatic systems points both to a Minimalist aesthetic and to a Structuralist play with linguistics.
*The Members Library is constructed and designed by artist and architect Céline Condorelli in collaboration with Harry Thaler as a permanent work entitled ‘Things That Go Without Saying’. The structure she had built for The Members Library is part of a series entitled ‘Additionals’. These different prop-like objects and quasi-functional structures, operate at a scale between furniture and architecture.
Publications
7 December 2013 – 23 February 2014
Guy de Cointet (1934–1983) was an artist who lived in Los Angeles most of his life, where he developed a polymorphic corpus of works. His practice could be described as ‘theatre in an expanded field’. Guy de Cointet has written more than twenty plays, half of which were staged during his lifetime. As a Frenchman in the U.S.A. and a perfect observer of the society of entertainment with its soap operas and body building, he created a body of work that investigates the borders between high and low, performance and sculpture, theatre and everyday life. Publications were one way for de Cointet to express his interest in cryptography with which, just like with his drawings and plays, he created impenetrable puzzles of letters and numbers. The publications presented perfectly illustrate his love of interpretation and decoding. The artist’s use of enigmatic systems points both to a Minimalist aesthetic and to a Structuralist play with linguistics.
*The Members Library is constructed and designed by artist and architect Céline Condorelli in collaboration with Harry Thaler as a permanent work entitled ‘Things That Go Without Saying’. The structure she had built for The Members Library is part of a series entitled ‘Additionals’. These different prop-like objects and quasi-functional structures, operate at a scale between furniture and architecture.