Chapeaux! Hommage à Robert Filliou

8/10/2019 Chapeaux! Hommage Robert Filliou

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Chapeaux! Hommage Robert Filliou

La vitrine am

24, rue de Richelieu

75001 Paris

October 3rd- October 31st, 2014

Published as Chapeaux! Hommage Robert Filliou: An Exhibition to Put on (and Inside) Your Headhttp://hyperallergic.com/155966/an-exhibition-to-put-on-and-inside-your-head/

Located in La Chaux-de-Fonds near Neuchtel in the Swiss Jura Mountains,

watchmakers Greubel Forsey are celebrating their brands tenth anniversary by honoring

the gadfly artist Robert Filliou (1926-1987) in Paris with a rather curious show called

Chapeaux! Hommage Robert Filliou- and with a unique nonfunctioning watch in his

name.

Works by Filliou on display, including one of his last works Eins. Un. One. (1984), dice with only the number one on each side

(center) and a text-brick from his "Briquolages series (1982) (right)


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Filliou, an early proponent of social networking as art with hisEternal Network, La Fte

Permanente, held that art didnt have to express itself in the form of objects - and indeed

art is what makes life more interesting than art. For him, art was a means of action in the

world. As such, he is a very rare and fascinating artist, one closely associated with

Fluxus.

In 1962 Filliou started walking around with his own little traveling miniature personal

gallery in his hat, that he called La Galerie Lgitime(The Legitimate Gallery); an idea

reminiscent of Marcel Duchamps Bote-en-valise (19351941/1958). The group show

Chapeaux!, curated by Raphal Cuir (president o f International Association of Art Critics

in France), picks up its distinctly obscure aesthetic vibe and conceptual linkage there - in

January 1962 - when Filliou showed his own works in his hat. This he followed with a

one-man moving show of Benjamin Patterson in his hat in July 1962. That October, the

idea moved to London and took up a Chaplinesque bowler hat form (used in this show)

full of works by Filliou, Ben, Emmett Williams, Robin Page, Addi Kpcke and Daniel

Spoerri. When Filliou clicked with Fluxus head organizer George Maciunas,La Galerie

Lgitimebegan inviting other artists to exhibit in the hat.

Such an intimate scale that could fit in a hat encouraged attitude and gesture: meaning

small objects, event cards, poetry, photographs, film strips, music scores, art games

drawings and letters, rather than large, more saleable, art objects. The emphasis was on

discrete small scale, time and nomadism. Take for example his own work Poussire de

Poussire de leffet Chardin: La raie (1977) that by-and-large consists of a small dusty

cloth in a small box, with the dust collected from Jean-Baptiste-Simon Chardins

painting La raie (The Ray) (1728) in the Louvre collection.


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Robert Filliou Poussire de Poussire de leffet Chardin (La raie) (1977)

Similar to La Galerie Lgitime, Chapeaux! Hommage Robert Fillioufeatures small

works placed in a hat, here by Pierre Ardouvin, Ben, Thomas Hirschhorn, Guy Limone,

Yasmin Jahan Nupur, Yoko Ono, ORLAN, Mary Reid Kelley, Franck Scurti, Tracey

Snelling, Jeanne Susplugas, Stphane Thidet, Pierre Tilman and Joana Vasconcelos.


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Mary Reid Kelley "Gettysburg Address in a Hat" (2014)


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Jeanne Susplugas "Les galeries lgitimes (Moleskine notebook)" (2014)


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Tracey Snelling "Motor Court Motel" (2014)


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Partial installation view of Chapeaux! Hommage Robert Filliou, scnographie by Jakob + MacFarlane

Each artist received a bowler hat from Cuir and designed a small work to fit into it. These

hats were then set within a sprawling mirrored architectural structure (scnographie)

created by Jakob + MacFarlane that echoes the form of the bowler hat with its

perforations. Noticeably, Thomas Hirschhorn refused the bowler hat, showing, rather, a


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large coarse conspiracy-looking panel called L'importance du travail de Robert Filliou

pour moi" (2014). Also, Stphane Thidet preferred headphones for his audio spoken-

word piece "Dedans" (2014). But the most successful and respectful approach to Fillious

hat-as-gallery idea appeared to be the simplest: Franck Scurtis delightfully poetic

"Museum In Your Head" (2014), where the bowler holds a beautiful butterfly where your

head would go.

Franck Scurti, "Museum In Your Head" (2014)


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Despite "Chapeau sentimental" (2014), ORLANs carnivalesque string of pennants

overhead,Chapeaux!succeeds in gratifying despite the obvious dangers of what Peter

Schjeldahl callsfestivalism(crowd pleasing environmental installations that tend to exalt

the curator) through Cuirs distinctive sense of proper (rather modest) scale and light

touch. Along with a coherent combinational dexterity that blends diverse generations and

media together without sinking into the prevalent low-tech craft disposition that indeed

was Fillious. Really, elegant handmade works, like Yasmin Jahan Nupurs Stay Well

(2014) and Joana Vasconceloss "Microvalkyrie" (2014), were charming and frequently

enchanting. But Cuir also succeeded in advance through the equality of representation of

women present here, and by making available new art from outside the well-worn art

centers.


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Yasmin Jahan Nupur Stay Well (2014)


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Joana Vasconcelos "Microvalkyrie" (2014)

But Chapeaux! nurtures also a conceptually-oriented quasi-political hostility to

commodity capitalism by including Fluxus artist Bens contribution "This hat contains

the universe of the mind thinking about things" (2014) and Yoko Onos subtle "Write

your wish and put it into my hat" (2014).


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Yoko Ono "Write your wish and put it into my hat" (2014)

This quirky show will inevitably leave visitors feeling either tickled and pleased - or

simply baffled. And that is as it should be, as it embodies Fillious puzzling philosophy

of art as a playful conceptual means of resistance, rather than a finished art product.

I found that such a philosophy plays hell with the other focus of this show, the

relationship between art and brands (such as Greubel Forsey). Indeed the hostingorganization, La vitrine am, proclaims to be a dedicated space for art and brands. But

Filliou-style flippancy can also play around with social criticism, as it does with Guy

Limones piece 64% of the French are opposed to a military intervention in Syria by an

international coalition, in which France would be involved" (2013). It can play with

forms of denying commercial value, as Stphane Thidets audio text piece does. Play at


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Documents

Chapeaux! Hommage à Robert Filliou