MARK LECKEY - "FIORUCCI MADE ME HARDCORE FEAT. BIG RED SOUNDSYSTEM"

Following the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s commitment to mount international projects and reach a broader audience by presenting holdings of the Collection abroad, the Espace Louis Vuitton Tokyo introduces Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore feat. Big Red SoundSystem, which showcases two major works by British artist Mark Leckey. This show thus takes part of the Fondation’s “Hors-les-murs” programme, which unfolds at the Espaces Louis Vuitton in Tokyo, Munich, Venice, Beijing, Seoul and Osaka. 

Mark Leckey appartient à la génération des Young British Artists, mouvement créé à Londres à la fin des années 1980 aux côtés d’autres créateurs comme Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin et Sarah Lucas. Le plasticien multidisciplinaire avait pratiquement disparu de la scène artistique dans les années 1990, ne réapparaissant qu’à la fin de la décennie. Le thème de la place de l’artiste dans la société – et, plus précisément, dans l’industrie culturelle – est fondamental pour Leckey. Récemment, les nouvelles technologies et la révolution de l’accès à l’information ont donné naissance à plusieurs de ses œuvres. Sa performance/présentation The Long Tail (2009) est née du concept de « long tail » (longue traîne) élaboré par l’auteur anglo-américain Chris Anderson en 2004, qui théorise qu’avec la distribution immense rendue possible par Internet, les désirs marginaux de consommation peuvent aussi être source de profit. Dans la même optique, la fascination de Leckey pour la coexistence des humains avec les objets de consommation qui les entourent, l’a amené à proposer un concept plus étendu de la sculpture, une pratique animiste basée sur la communication avec les produits industriels. 

Heir to a fin-de-siècle dandyism dovetailing life and art in the vein of Oscar Wilde or Joris-Karl Huysmans, an extension of Charles Baudelaire’s “painter of modern life,” Leckey views his immediate environment as a tool and source of inspiration. He rejects the notion of art disconnected from everyday experience. Traveling through the history of Britain’s subcultures between the 1970s and 1990s, his work can only truly be appreciated when popular cultures are viewed as noble, worthy of interest and sources of genuine works of art. The video Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore (1999), actually marking his return to the art scene with great fanfare, exemplifies his interest in popular cultures and their do-it-yourself approach. Founder of music bands donAteller and Jack Too Jack, the artist sees rave music as an intense form of artistic expression, one he celebrates with gigantic speaker walls (SoundSystems, 2001-2003). Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore with SoundSystem (10-year Anniversary Remaster)(1999-2003-2010), presented in this exhibition, perfectly synthesizes this approach by mixing these two earlier works.

Drawing inspiration from his cultural and material environment, Leckey’s world is obviously online and digital, made up of cybernetic and bionic technologies. He talks about it through his own obsessions, often objects that he uses in his work. “I’m a fetishist, I fetishize things, and I’m drawn to these things and I’m obsessed about these things and I need to possess them in some way, because I feel like they are possessing me. I want some kind of reciprocation,” he explains. Therefore, embracing the cartoon character Felix the Cat (2013), Leckey makes this specific figure his own: the first subject to be televised in 1928, thus appropriating this pioneer symbol of the digital era.