Galerie Lara Vincy.

On the opening night, signing of the book “Hyperobjets d’art”, recently published by the Editions Incertain Sens with the support of the Frac Bretagne and of the galerie Lara Vincy.

For his fourth solo exhibition in the Lara Vincy gallery, Pascal Le Coq is showing three new series of objects taken from his OXO encyclopedia: the HYPEROBJETS D’ART, packaging on which can be glimpsed artists’ signatures, the VEXILLUM, plates of recomposed flags, and, finally, a large painting entitled CARREFOUR
SEMANTIQUE, an abstract version of a logo representing a famous supermarket chain.
Since 1996, Pascal Le Coq has been collecting icons in the media world and redesigning them, transforming them into new artistic icons. First of all in a printed form in his encyclopedic publication OXO. Then as is the case today, in atridimensional form inside a gallery space. Each of these objects’ titles have been given a dual definition in OXO: the first one studies the economy of that artistic experience and is reserved for the subscribers, who are sent a piece of the encyclopedia four times a year in exchange of a financing of the printing.
The other one deals with the objects themselves and can be displayed in a public space. Thus:

HYPEROBJET D’ART = Supermarket or department store product containing, in an involuntary manner an artist’s signature on its wrapping, owing to the principle of the logogriph or homonymy. That signature’s revelation is obtained by the removal of superfluous signs (the paint used to cover them up being of the same
color as the background of the original object). Ex.: a pack of Kleenex is a “hyperobjet d’art” by the painter Klee. (in OXO n°5)
Pascal Le Coq suggests that the viewer, the critic, the historian should make his own analysis of that definition published in 1997. Doubtless, there are multiple interpretations, and maybe very different from his own, as there are always several levels of reading. Because, what interests him, is not so much to have found a new
support for reflecting on the object’s place in the art market, on the role of artists’ signatures transformed into brands, on the vagaries of mechanization or on the circulation of derived industrial products in museums.
No, what is essential for him, is the transformation – the transmutation – of an object that a simple make-up (the stroke of paint masking the superfluous signs) can reveal in full daylight: “Make up = to raise up!”.

CARREFOUR SÉMANTIQUE = Logotype transformed through Photoshop by a dual mirror effect: horizontal and vertical, with the aim of producing a new abstract form endowed with multiple semantic meanings. (in OXO n°229)
In the centre of the exhibition there stands a large logo from the Carrefour supermarkets transformed into an abstract painting. For Pascal Le Coq, this new form summarises in a nodal point, for whoever wishes to dive in, all the most profound desires, all the longings, all the possibilities. A new transgendered icon so to speak, faithful to the spirit of the objects he had earlier presented in the galerie Lara Vincy. We particularly recall the “Miss Erotica”, those balls turned inside out like socks that exhibited their bladder in erection. “Here we find ourselves at the crossroads of art, of psyche, of love and of trade.”

VEXILLUM = Brown surface covered with recomposed flags (for ex.: “LUxembourg + zamBIE = LUBIE”). (in OXO n°1204)
In this exhibition, we will also rediscover the quintessence of OXO: a broad overview of the encyclopedic publication developed by the artist since 1996 – the matrix where everything is conceived. Named “Vexillum”, this extract represents 1600 entries in the encyclopedia in the guise of recomposed flags. The
manner of presentation is inspired by the first vexillological pages of a Larousse dictionary. The brown background is a combination of the colors of the “Lubies”, as Pascal Le Coq takes over for his own use the famous declaration by Jean Dupuy: “Brown is the sum of all colors”.

Sergei Loubousoi