Systems

systems



arthurfouray.systems is an archive of my work and a work I keep rearranging. Paintings, objects, songs, books, exhibitions and projects that were never made share one address, with no hierarchy between them. Duchamp’s La Boîte verte (1934) is the model: notes that extend a work without settling its meaning. The site is an archive, an interface and a book to navigate at once – a Gesamtkunstwerk whose parts keep their independence. A pillow gives a painting its dimensions; a sentence becomes a recording; an ISBN becomes the title of a canvas. The connections matter as much as the differences, and the order of the archive is also something I make. To make a process public is more than to make it visible: its materials, sources and detours are here, with no instructions on what to make of them. Follow a date, an image, a title or a reference. There is no compulsory order. My logic is irregular.

2654 Images - 139872 Words - 129 Web Pages
Including: 25 Projects - 244 Works - 45 Shows - 4 Albums - 5 Books - 129 Pages - 8314 References - 4 Solo shows - 14 Group shows - 27 Curated shows - 33 Bowls - 776 Cards - 24 Ceramics - 204 Collages - 111 Colors - 9 Decks of cards - 661 Digital Media - 375 Drawings - 10 Engravings - 2 Fine Arts School Displays - 43 Illustrations - 7 Installations - 129 Instructions - 1 Interventions - 1 Interviews - 9 Masks - 4 Models - 12 Music release covers - 1 Music videos - 2 NFTs - 151 Objects - 83 Painting - 347 Photography - 37 Plates - 54 Sculptures - 2 Silkscreens - 9 Singles - 240 Sketches - 39 Songs - 1 Tumblr posts - 2 Typefaces - 1 Verbs - 3 Wall paintings - 1 Websites - 1 Toy Series - 4738 People - 142 Collectives & bands - 125 Fictional characters - 478 Works - 87 Projects & series - 9 Architecture & design - 175 Exhibitions & events - 138 Books & publication series - 1 Theses & dissertations - 4 Reports & press kits - 87 Articles, essays & correspondence - 47 Periodicals - 19 Websites & digital publications - 115 Films - 22 Series & shows - 354 Music - 557 Venues & institutions - 726 Organisations & companies - 138 Publishers & record labels - 33 Buildings & sites - 104 Catalogued objects - 26 Typefaces - 1 Games & interactive works - 10 References to identify - 77 PDFs & documents - 1 Plays & theatre - 32 Names to identify - 49 Historical figures - 2 Mythological and religious figures - 1 Historical religious figures - 10 Religious figures - 2 Mythological figures - 2 Fictional organisations - 2 Shared author names




P+
2012, 2024-2026
1101 Images - 8577 Words - 10 Web Pages
Including: 3 Projects - 10 Pages - 776 Cards - 204 Collages - 109 Colors - 9 Decks of cards - 165 Drawings - 129 Instructions - 2 NFTs - 161 Photography - 214 Sketches

P+ keeps drawings, images, colours and propositions on cards, dealt into decks in 2012 and again since 2024. Selecting and rearranging are already ways of working: an association can turn into a project, and the project can remain a proposition. The + leaves the sum open. An idea can be shared before anyone knows how – or whether – to make it.




Music
2022-2026
12 Images - 18511 Words - 13 Web Pages
Including: 1 Projects - 4 Albums - 13 Pages - 12 Music release covers - 1 Music videos - 9 Singles - 39 Songs






rt4a
2021-2026
151 Images - 3861 Words - 33 Web Pages
Including: 1 Projects - 50 Works - 33 Pages - 33 Bowls - 24 Ceramics - 6 Drawings - 27 Objects - 27 Painting - 37 Plates

rt4a began when a phone transcribed a nickname – a piece of chance almost worthy of Cage. Since 2021 the code has signed paintings, objects and recordings. It attributes a work while saying little about the person, which leaves one name room for several ways of working.

D*************
2018-2019
*** Images - ***** Words
Including: ** *****, * ********, * *******

D************* *** ** ***** ************ ****** *’********* ************* *** ******** ** ***** ** *’***.





Screen
2017
45 Images - 1911 Words - 1 Web Page
Including: 1 Projects - 1 Books - 1 Pages - 36 Photography - 1 Silkscreens

SCREEN (2017), an artist’s book, comes out of the research for the exhibition Spectre (2015). A book, silkscreens on cushions and a video carry the same images between painting, print and cinema, and the colophon is set like the credits of a film. Turning a page, crossing a room and watching a sequence become three ways of reading one piece of research.






Exhibition Making
2015-2026
14 Images - 39470 Words - 29 Web Pages
Including: 2 Projects - 27 Shows - 1 Books - 29 Pages - 27 Curated shows - 26 Photography

Making exhibitions with and for other people is part of my practice, not a sideline to it. A programme, a room and the information around a work decide who meets it, and how. Exhibition Making gathers the research, selection and arrangement carried out with others at Silicon Malley, DOC! and LUMA. The aim is transmission rather than mediation: part of the work is to make the conditions in which someone else’s work can be seen.






Arthur Fouray
2013–
58 Images - 25931 Words - 20 Web Pages
Including: 4 Projects - 45 Works - 13 Shows - 20 Pages - 4 Solo shows - 8 Group shows - 2 Colors - 2 Fine Arts School Displays - 1 Objects - 38 Painting - 1 Silkscreens - 3 Wall paintings - 1 Websites

Under my own name, from 2013 to 2017, a pillow, a ladder or a bed base could give a painting its shape. An object could disappear behind a monochrome and come back in its title. Across these works, what holds an image up becomes part of what it says.






a plus o minus
2013-2015
112 Images - 1506 Words - 3 Web Pages
Including: 2 Projects - 110 Works - 1 Shows - 3 Pages - 1 Group shows - 1 Interventions - 111 Objects

a plus o minus was an artistic and curatorial practice shared with Nastassia Cougoulat Montel from 2013 to 2015. We looked, selected, extracted, juxtaposed and presented: objects found, bought or left over, photographed and placed side by side. What drew us to a thing, and what changed once it met another, became the material of the work.






mmm
2013-2016
18 Images - 16343 Words - 4 Web Pages
Including: 3 Projects - 13 Works - 1 Books - 4 Pages - 1 Interviews - 9 Photography - 1 Tumblr posts - 1 Typefaces - 1 Verbs

mmm – www turned upside down – began as an online diary of 716 posts, kept from 2013 to 2015. It became an artist’s book, M (2015), and a series of nine photographs, MM (2016). Typefaces borrowed from artists and institutions let the words arrive already dressed in someone else’s visual language.






Pre-Natal
2011-2013
757 Images - 4188 Words - 7 Web Pages
Including: 6 Projects - 26 Works - 4 Shows - 7 Pages - 5 Group shows - 607 Digital Media - 7 Drawings - 7 Installations - 12 Objects - 11 Painting - 109 Photography

These early pieces, from 2011 to 2013, test what a support, a label, a screen or the gap between two objects can do. Objects behave like words here and an installation like a sentence: rearranged, the same elements say something else.






before Arts
1991-2011
386 Images - 447 Words - 1 Web Page
Including: 1 Projects - 2 Books - 1 Pages - 54 Digital Media - 197 Drawings - 10 Engravings - 43 Illustrations - 9 Masks - 4 Models - 7 Painting - 6 Photography - 54 Sculptures - 26 Sketches - 1 Typefaces - 1 Toy Series