Used everyday objects, behind a window, and transformed into works of art: welcome to Lèche-Vitrines, Harry Nuriev's daring exhibition at the Sultana Gallery. Until March 8, 2025, the fashionable designer diverts consumerism to sublimate the ordinary. A free artistic stroll, to discover in the Marais!
What if strolling in front of a window was only reserved for shopaholics? Until March 8, 2025the Galerie Sultanain the Marais, offers a free exhibition signed Harry Nurievthe enfant terrible of design and founder of Crosby Studios. Son installation Window Shopping diverts the sacred tool of consumerism to turn it into an artistic manifesto. Empty bottles, faded creams and half-full shampoos… are presented in a completely new light!
Window shopping off the beaten track
It's the story of a window that seems straight out of a department store… except that, behind the panes, there are not luxury items but abandoned objects. Used bottles, crumpled tubes, scraps of everyday life, these “rejects” – a gift from the artist’s loved ones – become sculptures thanks to Nuriev’s alchemy. His credo? THE Transformisma way of transform the ordinary into extraordinary. This magician of objects, to whom we owe computer keyboard mirrors or rugs with underpants, goes further here: he not only changes the object, he changes our view of it.
A snub to overconsumption
Under his mischievous appearance, Window Shopping hides a sharp criticism of the always-more society. Harry Nuriev asks the question that makes department store shelves tremble: “What will remain of our world in 50 years?” Will the planet be able to support consumers' insatiable appetite for much longer? With his windows filled with used products, the artist offers an alternative: rather than endlessly replacing, why not enhance what already exists?
This extreme makeover of objects, in addition to being eco-friendly, invites us to re-enchant our lives. An old shampoo becomes a relic, an empty bottle tells a story… What if this was true luxury?
The window, symbol of a world to (re)think
For Nuriev, the exhibition itself is an object to be diverted. The window, queen of the boulevards and icon of capitalism since the 19th century, is here in fashion blackout. In a dark scene and almost worrying, it loses its function as a desire machine to become a showcase for emotions.
-References abound. Émile Zola already described shop windows as lust traps in To the Ladies' Happiness. But where the windows of department stores suck us into a spiral of consumerist frustration, Nuriev reverses the trend. Behind the transparency of the glass, there are no longer new goods but traces of life, fragments of humanity.
A utopia within reach
The objects on display come from Harry Nuriev's entourage. Each perfume tells the story of a person, each cream evokes a memory. More than a snub to capitalism, it's a tender nod to the community. Here, no monster sales, but an invitation to rethink our relationship with objects, with others, with the world.
So, want to enjoy it without emptying your wallet? Direction there Harry Nuriev's first solo exhibition in France !
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