Swiss artist Sylvie Fleury through her sculpture, installation and mixed media work, Swiss artist Sylvie Fleury explores objects that she considers symptomatic of our modern consumer culture and their relationship to gender and politics.
With an irreverent, punk-like spirit in her Crash Test series, Fleury returns to the motif of the car: a symbol for the artist that is suffused with male leisure and ‘macho’ stereotype. After being barred from a motoring club, the artist established a women-only racing club in the 1990s. Continuing to subvert gender stereotypes, Fleury uses her own car to crash into sheets of steel. Through this action, the shiny metallic surfaces become warped, dented and scratched.
The concept of destruction is extremely prevalent in Fleury’s practice. In her performance, Drastic Makeup (2007), the artist again makes use of a car to smash and shatter several makeup products, a critique perhaps of both consumer culture and the societal pressures of ‘perfection’ that are enforced on women. This feminist perspective is ever-present in Crash Test 3-50 (Pearl White), as Fleury renders the sleek perfect surface of steel, imperfect.
Although the radiating plane is seductive, it is also cataclysmic, serving as a reminder to the viewer of the complex and perhaps destructive consequences of modern-day design, consumerism and conventional gender roles that are often imposed by both society and capitalism.
