“Mais il faut en accepter les effets secondaires : je n’ai pas grand-chose à vendre !”
P.J., 2003
P.J., 2003
Pierre Joseph is timid, or he’s not timid at all. However, he is political. No, actually he’s not really political. He’s a misunderstood genius. But what is there to understand? Is he a Buddha or a bouder? What is Pierre Joseph, or rather, who is he?
Through a series of conversations with friends, collaborators, teachers and a Brit who nearly died on his way to Nice, we still haven’t found an answer. However, there’s one thing they all agree on, he’s clever.
The riddle of his work is perhaps trapped in what he’s left behind; a dead toreador lying on the gallery floor, a metamorphic butterfly, a pair of nunchucks, or even a basic curriculum vitae.
We look amused and act as if we’re in on the joke: ‘how clever is this’. But are we certain we didn’t misplace the trick? Is the joke on us?
The Brit, aka Liam Gillick, said that one thing Joseph taught him was that if you don’t describe the work, you make it undefinable, and so, uncritiquable.
Maybe that’s the joke.
So, we try and turn it inside out by doing the sacrilegious thing of describing the works. Our minds protest: let us be in the world of ideas! Let us make all sorts of crazy flights of fancy!
No no, we say, what are we looking at here?
There’s a thin green piece of fabric on the floor with a mostly white pair of Reeboks sprawling out of it. Disintegrating, unwearable, the shoes are different sizes. Nunchucks lie harmless on the opposite corner of the fabric. They have black handles and a chain between them. There’s a prepaid SIM card still in its carrier. On it, a girl floats in a sky made of bubbles, faceless. The card expired on the first of June 2010.
On the wall, a Curriculum Vitae. It has a Word aesthetic, the same people use today, and a picture. To us, it’s very French to have a picture on your CV. The picture portrays a young man, his face nicely in focus, wearing a green polo and a sly smile. He is slightly balding and is growing a beard. He is 32 and was born in Caen. The age is quite French to us too. The CV details his work experience, including some time spent in a perfume shop.
In the other room, depending on the time you’re reading this, you can either see a man dressed as a bullfighter spread on the floor, or you will see a picture of another man, on another floor, wearing similar clothes. The man in front of you is wearing a light blue outfit, the man in the picture, a red one. They both have small traces of blood on their hands. Neither one moves an inch.
Humbly taking pride of place, between the two balconies, a red text on a black background surfaces from the white wall. You walk over the bullfighter, or perhaps its ghost, to read:
“We characters have the impression that our authors no longer love us enough to make us more than one-dimensional. More than just a face or a ploy. Instead of miring us in a kind of static hysteria or bumping us off violently and gratuitously, why can’t they give us a second chance?”
Finally, you turn around and see two framed photos of the same image, open balconies, a can on the table and a blue butterfly stuck on the window. One image has a red frame, the other a blue one. The Coca Cola is open in one picture, closed in the other. The sea seems closer in that one. Are they the same image?
You happen to glance at the list of works: Jeu des sept erreurs... You start counting.
“Non, c’est pas vrai, j’ai plein de choses à vendre !”
P.J., 2026
P.J., 2026