++++ Born in 1970, the artist lives and works in Paris. Numerous stays in Berlin have been determinant for the setting up of his work:‘They have slowly helped me to re-consider an approach of art, architecture, design and history. I’ve assimilated deeply that in all Utopia there is first reorganisation of space.’ (Mathieu Mercier)

++++ Inspired by his approach to systems for classifying, recording and categorising standardised cultural forms, the project proposed to Mathieu Mercier was to define a space to contain and organise the Manifesta 4 archives. This commission draws on both the critical approach that he represents (the heritage of modernism and the avantgardes) and the complexity of modes of perception elicited by his work, and its symbolic and practical uses. The archives room is made up of wooden modules that can be moved and combined as in a construction game, along with telescopic compressed air lamps and neons. The ensemble generates effects of displacement, opens up perspectives and gaps. These gaps, which are characteristic of Mercier’s work, are between product and object, between a hi-tech futurist vision of things and that of mechanical, industrial assemblages, between a Pop or constructivist aesthetic and everyday reality. (Stéphanie Moisdon Trembley)

Installation view at Galerie Chez Valentin,Paris,2001. Photo : Marc Domage