MARIE-ANGE GUILLEMINOT

„As part of the exhibition The Marvellous Cacophony, visitors are invited to bring their damaged pantyhose; the duration of their life will be extended in the Transformation Parlour. A rip on them looks like scar tissue. At one time, such rips used to be repaired. During the war, women would draw a line on the back of their legs to give the illusion that they were wearing stockings… as they would make garments from curtains with a minimum amount of canvas or cloth.

The nylon backpack has innumerable shapes, depending on what it contains and thus takes sculpture-like forms. The user quickly accepts the backpack and plays with its form. It’s impossible to get tired of! The function is reversible.

The transformation and the produced object raise the question of the market and art. Is this pantyhose backpack a sculpture? What is its price? The price of a pair of pantyhose or that of a work of art? What is the essence of the gift?

Pantyhose will be turned into a backpack on the spot, at the Transformation Parlour. Visitors will be able to bring their own. Whoever is patient enough will have the opportunity to learn how a backpack is made and be able to make it for personal use or to teach others to do the same.“

Marie-Ange Guilleminot, a graduate of the Villa Arson 1985, is based in Paris. In 1997 she received an honorary prize for the Transformation Parlour at the Venice Biennale. She is very present on the international art scene:  Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima (2005); Kyoto Art Centre (2006); Centre George Pompidou, Paris (2010); Villa Savoye, Poissy (2012). The exhibition Laps, a retrospective of her entire oeuvre, presented at the Sèvres Centre of Ceramics (2013); Destine-moi une Maison (Give Me a Home), at the Centre d’Art La Chapelle Jeanne d’Arc , Thouars (2015); Touch and See, the installation for the visually impaired and blind, the City of Paris Fashion Museum – Palais Galliera (2016); The Space Between! – commissioned by the Medical and Psychological Centre for Children and Adolescents within the action New Sponsors, supported by the Foundation of France and the Karasso Foundation (2017).