Matthieu Laurette - A retrospective as derive (1993-2023)

Catalogue for the exhibition Matthieu Laurette: a retrospective as derive (1993-2023), presented at the MAC VAL, Vitry sur Seine (21 October - 3 March 2024).

A truly multimedia artist, Matthieu Laurette's work covers a vast spectrum of forms: from televised interventions to installations and recent developments on Instagram, he has devised a number of infiltration strategies that combine conceptual art, popular culture, institutional criticism, economic reflection and societal issues.

Matthieu Laurette uses existing mechanisms (marketing, mass media, cultural industries, etc.) to create his own works. Among other things, they question the very notion of value. They call into question the role and place of art and the artist in the age of generalised, globalised spectacle. Steeped in art history, he works at the crossroads of the real and the symbolic. His work, which in many ways foreshadows ultra-contemporary questions (degrowth, decolonial approach), is built on a logic of long-term projects. Juggling with the mechanisms of Guy Debord's La Société du Spectacle, Matthieu Laurette's works play on self-fulfilling processes, creating feedback loops of sorts within large-scale informational devices.

This "Derivative Monograph", packed with over 800 illustrations, looks back over the artist's entire output, inviting authors who have in some cases followed his work from the outset.

Matthieu Laurette was born in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges in 1970. After studying at art schools in Rennes and Grenoble, he began his artistic career in the mid-1990s. Emblematic of his generation, he won the Ricard prize in 2003. His work is included in a number of public and private collections, and has been exhibited internationally in the most prestigious institutions. He has previously taken part in three group exhibitions at the MAC VAL.