Art & the Printed Matter

Sébastien Girard’s reappropriation of Wolfgang Tillmans’ Concorde operates as a brilliant intersection of homage, institutional critique, and guerrilla publishing. Executed during Tillmans’ 2025 retrospective at the Centre Pompidou, Girard utilized the exhibition’s own interactive elements, a public Xerox machine and an official exhibition stamp, to physically duplicate and mutate the iconic photobook sold in the museum's library. By producing a literal bootleg within the walls of the institution celebrating the original artist, Girard subverts traditional boundaries of authorship and copyright, transforming a simple act of mechanical copying into a profound conceptual gesture.

Aesthetically, this intervention radically alters the visual register of Tillmans' original work. Translated into an oversized, black-and-white format, the nuanced tonality of the original photographs is stripped away and replaced by the stark, high-contrast degradation inherent to the xerographic process. This deliberate mechanical distortion renders the images of the supersonic jet far more graphic and dramatic, reducing a sleek symbol of late-twentieth-century technological optimism to gritty, noise-heavy silhouettes. The repetitive application of the Pompidou’s exhibition stamp on each page further complicates the object, imposing a permanent aura of institutional authentication onto an otherwise illicit reproduction.

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This work by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, which I've recently rehung, has always captivated me.

Completed in 1983, it is based off an interior designed by Mies van der Rohe in the Museum Haus Lange in Krefeld, which was the subject of the artists' transformative installation. By concealing the precise, austere interiors originally designed by the famous architect, the artists fundamentally altered the spatial experience of the building. This project highlights their enduring conceptual practice of temporary concealment, where the act of wrapping domestic and institutional spaces paradoxically reveals the underlying architectural volumes that are typically taken for granted.

I've always been fascinated by the collage elements on the actual print, most notably the hand-painted cloth that has been deliberately folded and wrinkled to mimic the draped floor area of the original site. Secured with staples and juxtaposed against brown wrapping paper that obscures the windows, the heavy, organic folds of the fabric create a textural contrast against the geometric discipline of the room.