Bruno Peinado

[imomus]

The Palais de Tokyo is the Paris art Ikea: design and quality, lots of colour, lots of space, a chance for young designers to make their 'collection', a nice cafe, an area near the checkout where you can buy small trinkets for the home, and a place with catalogues themed around lifestyle (the bookstore).

This is the current show, by Bruno Peinado. Stretched around the P de T's curved gallery the show looks like a big graphic design display, with a Mediterranean-Californian brash freshness, a pop art look which, on closer inspection, is about the politically incorrect (little black baby sits next to a Walt Disney logo), piracy (the huge 'unavailable due to copyright restrictions' placard), flatness, eclecticism and colour (some nice drippy lettering in various styles), Wim Delvoye-like jokes (a mirrorball cement mixer), and sensual immediacy (some big wind machines that turn on when you approach them). There are cars and motorbikes strewn around the space, and even a wall of drawings. It's the 'anything goes' approach which makes the show look like a big attractive catalogue, just like Ikea's. I flip flop through it for pleasure, relieved that, unlike the real Ikea, it's almost empty, and you don't really have to buy anything (although I'm tempted by the Nipponia Nippon issue of Plus 81 magazine in the bookstore, it's too dear at 19 euros; I'll get it in Tokyo next week).

Comments

[sylvia101.livejournal.com]

i like the broken skateboard. will the show travel do you think? i would love to see it at the MCA in Chicago.