a plus o minus Objects

 α + ο -

(104 Objects)
https://a-plus-o-min.us

α + ο - is a collaborative artistic and curatorial practice by Arthur Fouray and Nastassia Cougoulat Montel. Found, purchased and leftover objects become notes in arrangements. Their earlier uses remain available even as their positions change. 

We look, select, extract, juxtapose and present. Each step is a decision: choosing an object does not settle how to photograph it or what to put beside it.

Attraction, difference, social value and cultural associations can pull the selection in different directions. A collection can gather things without making them alike. 

Clipped pack-shots borrow a commercial catalogue’s apparently neutral presentation. Removing the background isolates an object and withholds part of its setting. The photograph keeps that loss of context inside its method. 

The website a-plus-o-min.us is a showcase, a collection and a catalogue. It lets objects meet across contexts while leaving their names, forms and value open to question. 

In an exhibition or nightclub, an object can become a readymade, a gesture, an ingredient or an image. Its neighbours—and the people encountering it—change what can happen. 

Advertising and merchandising enter as ways of choosing, displaying and producing desire. We work with their forms too, where attraction and critical distance are difficult to keep apart.

α + ο -
Arthur Fouray
α + ο -
Nastassia Cougoulat Montel