On view until the 31st of July at Mark Hachem Gallery, multi-media artist Yves Hayat's most recent solo exhibition examines the complex relationship between contemporary politics and consumer culture. The exhibition is entitled "Sale Temps," which translates from French to "Bad Weather" and references the perfect storm of social, economic, religious, and cultural tensions that dominate the current international political climate and constitute the subject matter of the works in the exhibition.
Hayat's biography emphasizes the artist's use of various media to explore Western culture's relationship to what he views as the seemingly relentless twin forces of war and marketing, and the exhibition showcases works of photography, collage, digital manipulation and plexiglas that combine images of violence with iconic images of luxury consumption such as purses (Femmes Au Bord de la Crisse de Guerre) and perfume bottles (Parfum Geant Gaza). Layers of transparent material are printed with ghostly images of iconic luxury products superimposed with reminders of the political violence that exists alongside them, such as the cell phone depicting the public hanging of two women in Connected Bag, part of the "Femmes Au Bord de la Crisse de Guerre" series featured in the exhibition.
As Hayat explained to Lise Kjaer in the Spring 2016 issue of GLASS (#142), the artist considers glass (and, in its transparency, one can assume he includes plexiglas as well) "the minimal material par excellence. Used in its simplest form, it filters a pure and transformed image integrating lights, shades, and shifts... This material allows all the manipulations of reality." In "Sale Temps," Hayat manipulates the reality of Western culture to expose its layers of contradictory iconic meanings.
IF YOU GO:
Yves Hayat "Sale Temps" Mark Hachem Gallery Paris Marais 44, rue des Tournelles 75004 PARIS Tel: +33 142 74 57 22 Email: paris@markhachem.com http://www.markhachem.com/exhibitions.html