ELIOTT PAQUET

The artwork

WHTSNXT: BENCHMARK
2016
Micro-perforated printing on Polystirene, aluminium
200×100 cm
Courtesy of the artist

WHTSNXT: BENCHMARK is a micro-perforated printing on a translucent polystyrene panel of 200 x 100 cm maintained by aluminium flats. The printed image is a photograph of grass and dew in the morning light. In the direct continuity of An Average Idea Of The Sky, WHTSNXT: BENCHMARK is a calibration work. Several advertising photography and stock images were used in the creation of this work, offering a mathematically average picture, a Jungian advertising archetype. The blades of grass and reflections repeat themselves upside down; a careful look immediately revealing the photomontage. But the truth doesn’t matter any more; WHTSNXT: BENCHMARK is only a sham image whose purpose is to represent an ideal advertisement. The concept of purity – essentially commercial and unattainable – is the symptom of a humanity disconnected from Nature; a humanity which is evolving in a labyrinth of mirrors, only returning itself its own image through profitable artefacts. Pictorial advertising ideals are a form of sacred, religious ersatz that have to fill a void through a projection of desires. In a post-capitalist era, the internet pictures stocks strike in the link between image and representation of a subject; these captivating icons carry within them neo-liberalist concepts. Some coloured flacons are presented in a linear way under the panel. The linear layout shows a color gradient from light yellow to teal – the average spectrum of colors in the image. These samples are also stallions that refer to the backstage, the excesses of contemporary scientism and materialism.

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The artist

Eliott Paquet (1990) is a young french artist. He finished the Beaux Arts de Paris, then works with Côme Di Meglio for the exhibitions Welcome Back Baby. Its multidisciplinary practice influenced by science fiction question the relationship between human and Nature and interrogates the ontological dimension of the human race.