Gilles Barbier's Banana Graces artpress Cover in June 2010

In June 2010, artpress issue No. 368 featured a cover image of Gilles Barbier's installation "La Patinoire" (2009), a large-scale work measuring 12 x 8 meters made of methacrylate, tinted resin, and latex. The cover story, written by Richard Leydier, recounts how a banana from Barbier's work became the cover image. Barbier was preparing an exhibition at Galerie Georges-Philippe et Nathalie Vallois about his life in Vanuatu, where he grew up. Leydier, who had a personal connection to French Polynesia, was eager to interview Barbier about this period. Leydier first encountered Barbier's work at the 1997 Lyon Biennale curated by Harald Szeemann, where Barbier showed the photographic series "Planqué dans l'atelier." Leydier knew Barbier's wife Catherine from university, and she facilitated the interview. In April 2010, Leydier traveled to Barbier's studio at the Friche de la Belle de Mai in Marseille. After the interview, artpress editor Catherine Millet suggested putting Barbier on the cover for the first time. Leydier recalled "La Patinoire," exhibited in 2009 at Villa Arson in Nice, which featured lubricating agents like bananas. The banana, a recurring motif in Barbier's work (he produced hundreds in resin), predates Maurizio Cattelan's duct-taped banana. The cover also evoked the Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol. In 2017, Barbier asked Leydier to write the preface for the catalogue of his exhibition "World Wide Web" at Villa Beatrix Enea in Anglet.