French haute department store Galeries Lafayette has invited Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari’s cult magazine TOILETPAPER to create a window display, an exhibition, and a work suspended in the iconic dome of their glamorous Parisian store.
Galeries Lafayette is handing over their flagship store to the anarchic pair known for their love of shock and bright color as a celebration of summer in the city of Paris. Given the sharp satirical content of the magazine, it will undoubtedly provide shoppers and visitors with eye-popping, and potentially baffling, entertainment.
“With more than 100,000 daily visitors from all corners of the globe visiting the store each July, Galeries Lafayette is delighted to showcase the work of this unorthodox pair for as many people as possible,” the store announced.
Photo: © TOILETPAPER
Cattelan and Ferrari create TOILETPAPER from found images, gathered from around the web and magazines reaching over decades. The result is the highly popular collection of stylized, fun images that makes, in an internet age, TOILETPAPER one of the most exciting print magazines around. Evocative of artists like Linder, the images and collages have a rebellious, though highly aestheticized feel to them.
“On the surface, the composition shots in TOILETPAPER have a quaint, slightly retro feel to them—an artful way of drawing us in before catching us off guard as we realize what we are actually looking at,” read Galeries Lafayette’s statement. “Intriguing, comical, startling—the images in TOILETPAPER are guaranteed to leave their mark.”
Photo: © TOILETPAPER
Cattelan is known for his anarchic sense of humor, which most recently has taken shape in a return to the art world that involved making a fully functional, solid gold toilet to be installed at Guggenheim in New York entitled America (2016).
Ferrari is a fashion photographer (the pair met when he shot Cattelan) who has worked for 10 Magazine, Purple Magazine, and created advertising campaigns for the likes of French fashion house KENZO.
Photo: © TOILETPAPER
The grand department stores of Paris have always geared up for the influx of tourists during the summertime with exciting displays, and lately, leading artists have been enlisted to collaborate on the seasonal highlights. Last year, China’s most famous dissident artist Ai Weiwei took over the upscale department store on the left bank Le Bon Marché with an installation evocative of his childhood memories.
TOILETPAPER at Galeries Lafayette will be on view from June 6 until September 10, 2016.