Isabelle Le Minh's Appropriation-Filled Exhibition at Galerie Christophe Gaillard

Isabelle Le Minh's exhibition 'Why Didn't You Make It Larger?' at Galerie Christophe Gaillard in Paris (October 13 – November 19, 2011) playfully appropriates a question posed to Tony Smith about his steel cube 'Die', as reported by Robert Morris in 'Notes on Sculpture'. The show features works laden with citations and appropriations, moving away from traditional photography toward conceptual reflection. In 'This Is the Artist', hundreds of photographs of artists posing, collected since 2005 and categorized (e.g., 'In the lotus position', 'In good company'), are presented as a video slideshow blending irony and psychoanalytic undertones. Some images are printed on paper or canvas and assembled by formal analogies. In the series 'Don't Fence Me In', Barnett Newman is juxtaposed with Lygia Clark, each before their own work. Elsewhere, images of pensive artists are affixed to the back of a mirror. Under a neon sign reading 'Tu sais l'artiste qui…', a printer spews paper listing brief descriptions—'the artist who moves walls, Jeppe Hein', 'the artist who simulated an earthquake, Loris Gréaud'. Le Minh gently mocks artists and the art world around them.