Mathieu Mercier's First Retrospective at Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris

The Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris presents the first retrospective of Mathieu Mercier (born 1970), covering thirteen years of his career. The exhibition features around fifty works, several created for the occasion, and challenges the common perception of his art as mere bricolage or the end of modernist utopias. Mercier's work resists easy slogans, balancing constructivism and readymade, while refusing spectacle and embracing aesthetic modesty. The show suggests his art functions as a hermeneutic trap, opposing the total transparency of consumer society. Notable pieces include Porte blindée (2001), a blind door; Holothurie (2000-2004), a sea cucumber in an aquarium; and 6h00 pendule murale (2007), a clock with eleven of twelve hours unmarked. The series Drum and Bass (2002) appears marginal now, while ZU (2001), an optician's letter chart questioning legibility, gains prominence. A new work, an 8-meter sloping wall with perpendicular shelves, echoes Robert Smithson's Pointless Vanishing Point (1967). The exhibition also features Homonculus (2007), a small bronze figure with oversized hands and mouth, symbolizing excessive production and communication. The retrospective runs from October 20, 2007, to January 6, 2008.