First retrospective monograph (a 600-page tome): everything about Thierry Geoffroy / Colonel.
This publication presents 22 different Art Formats, among them "Emergency Room", "Critical Run" and "Biennalist", which he has presented at institutions around the world. Thierry Geoffroy describes his Format Art as an artistic response to globalisation, with which he offers the individual a form that can be called upon again and again in order to express themselves, thus enabling everyone to react to emergencies and real problems in the here and now.
Through Format Art and other Ultracontemporary art concepts, Geoffroy has sought to address social and political grievances and has also shown how artists can find solutions. This monograph analyses the forms that represent Geoffroy's art from its beginnings to the present, devoting individual chapters to his photography, his painting, his language-based works, his media art and the exhibition platforms.
In this monograph, art historians and long-standing companions of the artist offer in-depth analyses of his artistic practice, that is, of his mobility and flexibility as well as his constant endeavour to remain one step "ahead" of chance and of his time. Accompanied by more than 1,000 illustrations, their contributions show how carefully Geoffroy conceives his works in order to convey and channel messages on the themes of identity, migration, war, propaganda or climate change. A comprehensive chronology of Geoffroy's work, listing his numerous exhibitions and interventions at countless institutions and events, reveals the full breadth and the continuous ambition of the artist to make people aware of their true potential for action in the face of crises.
Geoffroy's productive output, strongly determined by a sense of urgency, is nevertheless marked by sociability, generosity and, above all, a sense of harmony. Geoffroy's work is strategically frontal, poetic, humorous, self-critical and critical of institutions, but also profoundly personal. His irrepressible energy has given rise to an art movement of its own, at the centre of which stands "Emergency Art," questioning the state of "delay" that paralyses contemporary art and the world around it.
The subtitle of this monograph, "A Propulsive Retrospective," stands for the "forward-looking" character of this publication, which condenses and analyses the past while at the same time seeking to help drive forward the mission of combating apathy in the future. The publication is accompanied by a series of international presentations and seminars in which the theses of Geoffroy's work are to be set out, further promoted, explored and deepened.
Thierry Geoffroy / Colonel (born 1961 in Nancy) is a French artist who has lived in Copenhagen since 1982 and is known for his "emergency art formats", in particular "Emergency Room", "Critical Run" and "Biennalist". His practice, which takes the form of photographs, videos, sculptures, tents, paintings, texts and conceptual contracts, can be described as an artistic response to globalisation. Using a restricted formal vocabulary, he questions the issues at stake in an intensified, everyday present.
War, racism, the refugee crisis, news items and everyday mundane gestures become the subject of collective exhibitions and performances in institutions that are partitioned by outdated classification systems. An enthusiastic hitchhiker, he packs an international network of personalities in his suitcase, creating ephemeral communities like artistic precipitates that are reified in action.
Inspired by advertising, agitprop, junk art, happenings and institutional criticism, his work has an acuity and graphic consistency that serves an emphatic vision of the world.
His work has been presented in various art institutions around the world: MoMA PS1 in New York, ZKM Museum in Karlsruhe, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Palazzo Delle Art in Naples and Kunsthalle Mannheim, Villa Stuck Museum among others.
He has also participated in major artistic events such as the Venice Biennale, the Liverpool Biennale, the Manifesta Biennale, the Cairo Biennale and the Casablanca Biennale.
Edited by Michael Buhrs and Christian Ganzenberg.
Texts by Sebastian Baden, Michael Buhrs, Jonatan Habib Engqvist, Carsten Friberg, Morten Friis, Christian Ganzenberg, Elena Hansen, Séamus Kealy, Tijana Mišković, Susana Puente Matos, Marie-France Rafael, Johanne Schrøder, Inka Schube, and contributions by Mikkel Bøgh, Raphael Chikukwa, Julia Draganović, Mascha Faurschou, Åsmund Boye Kverneland, Christopher Lew, Madeleine Park, Holger Reenberg.
