MIKE BOUCHET
Make it Til You Fake it

Sept. 9 - Nov. 11, 2023

Press release

The exhibition, titled "Make It Til You Fake It," showcases a new series of oil paintings and sculptures cast in both bronze and porcelain which validate Bouchet’s enduring commitment to investigating art production within contemporary consumer culture, and effectively embodying the artist's conceptual and formal methodology.

For the new series of paintings, the artist photographed the paint-mixing palettes that were archived from the previous decade of work, and reproduced certain selections and details as highly realistic oil paintings. The oil paintings depict inviting luscious paint forms, reminiscent of floral figures, floating in whirls of color and optical patterns. The trompel’oil renderings create an illusory sense of visual depth. The result simultaneously embodies abstraction and utter realism. By re-purposing the material traces of his prior painterly work, Bouchet presents an enigmatic series of new paintings. They subtly employ the act of painting as intimate and introspective work, devoid of artistic subjectivity, strung out between fortuity and artistic auto-consumption. 

The featured sculptures in the show openly engage with this theme, being enlarged artistic interpretations of deodorant spray cans. They playfully and literally reflect on our constructed consumer and personal identities.
The bronze canisters, titled "Anarchy for Them (Bronze Axe)," treated with glossy or matte black patinas, stand at 30 centimeters in height. The porcelain canisters, titled "Anarchy for Them (Porcelain Axe),” measure 55 centimeters in height and also function as a fragrance diffuser.

These new sculptures hearken back to Bouchet’s participation in the 25th Gabrovo Biennial in May 2022, where towering three-meter-high canisters released the contrasting fragrances of Axe Body Spray variants "Anarchy for Him” and "Anarchy for Her," onto the attending crowd. 

Mike Bouchet (born 1970 in Castro Valley, California) lives and works in Frankfurt an Main and Offenbach. 
His works are represented in numerous international private and public collections, including LVMH Collection Paris, Belvedere Museum Vienna, CAPC/Musée d'Art Contemporain de Bordeaux, Bernard Arnault Collection Paris, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art Oslo, Moderna Museet Stockholm, Deutsche Bank Collection Frankfurt/M, DZ Bank Frankfurt/M, DekaBank Collection Frankfurt/M, Städelmuseum Frankfurt/M, Museum Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt/M, Margulies Collection Miami, Ullens Collection Beijing. Bouchet also has been participating artist in international biennials such as the Venice Biennial in 2009 and Manifesta in Zurich 2016. His works has been exhibited in various international Institutions and Museum exhibitions as MoMA PS1 (2005), Palais de Tokyo (2009), Schirn Kunsthalle (solo, 2010), Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo (2008, 2009, 2015), Jumex Collection Mexico (2012), Kunstverein Hannover (Made in Germany 2, 2012), Portikus Frankfurt/M (together with Paul McCarthy, 2014), National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, Norway (2018), Middelheimmuseum Antwerp, Belgium (2018), AROS Museum in Aarhus, DK (2019), Kunsthal Charlottenborg Copenhagen, DK (2020). Mike Bouchet received the 1822 Art Prize by the Frankfurter Sparkasse Foundation in 2014.
Since 2019 the artist holds a professorship for sculpture at HfG in Offenbach.