Exhibition Catalogues & Monographic Publications

Title year editor institution location language
Isabelle Cornaro
2023
Clément Dirié
JRP Editions in co-edition with Fondation d'entreprise Pernod Ricard and Fondation Hermès
Zurich, Switzerland
English and French

Active since the beginning of the 2000s, Isabelle Cornaro investigates the relationship between objects—especially decorative objects—value, and art, through the issues of representation, perceptual experience, and reproduction. She is also exploring how to translate forms and languages, for example an old master painting into a 3D installation, a film into a graphic score, or the vocabulary of Minimalism into a more emotional language. She mines ambiguity by setting up a tension between the analytical, symbolic, lyrical, and anecdotal, addressing how our way of looking constructs the—colonial, bourgeois, modern—world and its uses. She works with various media such as installation, painting, sculpture, video, wall painting, and drawing.

 

Informed by her studies of Renaissance and classical aesthetics, she has explored how French painter Nicolas Poussin gave form to constructed worlds in his detailed depictions of mythological scenes and to how baroque art empowered objects; she has often favored the genre of still life, be it carefully built or chaotically (dis)organized. In her two- and three-dimensional pieces Cornaro is always creating a stage for the objects to be seen and the viewer to position themselves in. Perspectives and the ways we look at things play a crucial role in her work.

 

Offering a first occasion to grasp the cogency of a manifold practice, this reference monograph includes essays by American art critic Tim Griffin and art historian and Musée Picasso Paris President Cécile Debray, interviews with curator Fabrice Stroun and editor Clément Dirié, as well as comprehensive descriptive texts by art critic Benjamin Thorel.

 

Soft Cover

184 pages

237 x 286 mm

ISBN 978-3-03764-573-4

 

The Fascination with the Material and the Aversion to It
2023
Scheidegger and Spiess/ SIK-ISEA
Scheidegger and Spiess/ SIK-ISEA
Lausanne
English and French

On Words is a collection of interviews with leading women artists linked to the contemporary art scene. In conversation with Juilie Enckell, Federica Martini, and Sarah Burkhalter, the artists are invited to trace the origin of their respective practices, discuss the challenges they have encountered, and share how they perceive the world. The sum of the voices brought together in the series On Words, co-edited by the Swiss Institute of Art Research (SIK-ISEA) and Scheideggerand Spiess, creates a polyphonic history of art-told by those playing an active part in its shaping.

Isabelle Cornaro’s works demonstrate how perception is conditioned by culture. Objects, their origins, our emotional connection with them — these are the themes of theatrical installations and short films. In conversation with Julie Enckell, Isabelle Cornaro discusses the sources and evolution of her art.

 

Text by Sarah Burkhalter, Julie Enckell, Federica Martini and Isabelle Cornaro
Designed by Valeria Bonin and Diego Bontognali
Softback, 50p, illustrated
103mm x 152mm
Scheidegger and Spiess 2023
ISBN 978 3 85881 871 3

This Morbid Roundrip from Subject to Object (a facsimilé)
2014
LA><ART (ed.)
LA><ART
Los Angeles, USA
English edition

On display at LA><ART from January 11 – February 22, 2014, Isabelle Cornaro’s exhibition “This Morbid Roundtrip from Subject to Object” explored the experience of perception in a formal language that bridged photography, drawing, film and sculpture. The exhibition focused on three 16mm shots, each presenting accumulated domestic objects, that distilled the monumental in the miniature and the painterly in the found. As a counterpart to the films, Cornaro exhibited a sculpture from her ongoing “Homonymes” series of slip cast sculptures, which play on how the baroque sought organic principles in decorative motifs. Through film, sculpture, drawing and painting, the French artist re-evaluates objects by exploring the tensions between their aesthetic and cultural value and by questioning meaning through formal and conceptual modes of display. The exhibition calatogue, designed by Lauren Mackler, features images from the films, alongside image-specific commentary by the author. Readers will also gain insight into the inspiration and process behind both “Homonymes” and “This Morbid Round Trip from Subject to Object” in an interview with Isabelle Cornaro by Matthew Schum. 

 

Text by Lauren Mackler

Interview by Matthew Schum

Designed by Lauren Mackler
116p, illustrated

101mm x 152 mm

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Inside the White Cube Nr. 13: Isabelle Cornaro
2012
Honey Luard
White Cube, London
London, UK
English edition

Through film, sculpture, drawing and painting, French artist Isabelle Cornaro re-evaluates objects by exploring the tensions between their aesthetic and cultural value and by questioning meaning through formal and conceptual modes of display.

Cornaro uses scanning, photography and plaster casting as her methods of production. Through meticulous arrangements, she investigates the properties of objects and the historicity they can point to or steer away from. Homonyms (II) (2012), for example, are coloured plaster casts taken from soft materials such as laces, quilts and carpets. The misplaced use of colour and materiality of their new form alters their original identity and disrupts how these transformed objects are perceived. In the film, Money filmed from the side and a three-quarter view (2010), Cornraro portrays actual coins and Euro notes being transformed into abstract forms through the cinematic use of light and colour. The preoccupation with spatiality and light in the film brings currency’s aesthetic into the composition, stripping the importance of its monetary value. Cornaro creates differing landscapes in her work, welcoming new reflections on the ideology of object and space.

Text by Fabrice Stroun and Isabelle Cornaro
Designed by Jonathan Hares
Softback, 64p, illustrated
232mm x 167mm
Edition of 500
White Cube 2012
ISBN 978 1 906072 72 8

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Isabelle Cornaro
2011
Clément Dirié (ed.)
JRP/Ringier in co-edition with the Magasin Grenoble and Kunsthalle Bern
Zurich, Switzerland
English and French

Isabelle Cornaro (b. 1974, France) investigates the relationship between objects—especially decorative objects—value, and art, through the issues of representation, perceptual experience, and reproduction. She is also exploring how to translate forms and languages, for example an old master painting into a 3D installation, a film into a graphic score, or the vocabulary of Minimalism into a more emotional language. She mines ambiguity by setting up a tension between the analytical, symbolic, lyrical, and anecdotal, addressing how our way of looking constructs the world and its uses. She works with various media such as installation, painting, sculpture, video, and drawing. To accompany the first publication on Isabelle Cornaro’s works, this book brings together a comprehensive essay by art historian and critic Vivian Sky Rehberg, an interview with London-based Raven Row deputy director Alice Motard, and an examination of her relationship with decorative arts by Glenn Adamson, Deputy Head of Research and Head of Graduate Studies at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

 

 

Published with the Centre national des arts plastiques, Paris; the Parc culturel de Rentilly; the Centre d’art contemporain / Passages, Troyes; the Fondation d’entreprise Pernold Ricard, Paris; CNAC – Le Magasin, Grenoble; and the Kunsthalle Bern.
French edition (ISBN 978-3-03764- 209-2) only available by les presses du réel.

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Artist’s books

title year editor location language
A Sort of Commercial Eroticness
2021
 
Paris, France
English and French
This volume is published on occasion of the exhibitions Contrepoint 6# from June 1st to September 6th, 2021, at the Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, and Infans, from June 22nd to July 31st, 2021, at the Fondation d’entreprise Ricard. Published with the support of the Fondation d’entreprise Pernod Ricard, Paris. Designed by Gavillet&Cle/Devaud.                               Cet ouvrage est édité à l’occasion des expositions Contrepoint 6#, L’intervalle des images , du 1er juin au 6 septembre 2021 au Musée de l’Orangerie, et Infans , du 22 juin au 31 juillet 2021 à la Fondation d’entreprise Ricard. Produit avec le soutien de la Fondation d’entreprise Pernod Ricard, Paris. Conception graphique par Gavillet&Cle/Devaud.

 

     

48p, illustrated

190mm x 235 mm

Edition of 500

ISBN 978 2 940656 06 6

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De l’adresse
2009

MER. Paper Kunsthalle

Gent, Belgium
English and French

This book is published by the Ferme du Buisson Art Centre and MER to mark the presentation of the exhibition Orion aveugle : récits avec figures projetées at the Ferme du Buisson (June–July 2008). Designed by Luc Derycke.

 

Cet ouvrage est coédité par le Centre d’art contemporain de la Ferme du Buisson et MER à l’occasion de l’exposition Orion aveugle : récits avec figures projetées à la Ferme du Buisson (juin – juillet 2008). Conception graphique par Luc Derycke.

 

Softback, 60p, illustrated

245 mm x 165 mm

ISBN 978 90 7697 997 7

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Black Maria (Phenomena Overwhelming Conscienceness)
2008

MER. Paper Kunsthalle

Gent, Belgium
English and French

This book is published by the Parc Culturel de Rentilly and MER to mark the presentation of the exhibition A Song of Opposites at the Parc Culturel de Rentilly (March 2008). Designed by Luc Derycke.

 

Cet ouvrage est coédité par le Parc Culturel de Rentilly et MER à l’occasion de l’exposition A Song of Opposites au Parc Culturel de Rentilly (mars 2008). Conception graphique par Luc Derycke.

 
         
Softback, 48p, illustrated

200mm x 250mm

ISBN 978 9 076979 55 7

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Plinth Arrangements (From Collected Exhibition Views)
2006

Imschoot Uitgevers

Gent, Belgium
English and French

This book is published by the Laboratoire de Création du Palais de Tokyo and Imschoot during the residency Le Pavillon (September 2005 - June 2006). Designed by Dirk Imschoot. Cet ouvrage est coédité par le Laboratoire de Création du Palais de Tokyo et Imschoot au cours de la résidence Le Pavillon (septembre 2005 - juin 2006). Conception graphique par Dirk Imschoot.

     

Softback, 32p, illustrated

200mm x 250mm

Edition of 8

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Artist’s contributions

Title year editor location date page language
Insert
2015

Parkett nr. 96

Zurich, Switzerland
June, 2015
 
English edition
“Dispatches,” in Public Fiction
2013

Lauren Mackler and Andrew Berardini

Los Angeles, USA
March, 2013
 
English edition
Expanded Translation (Un traité de trahison)
2011

Omar Berrada and Erik Bullot

United Arab Emirates
 
pp. 98–103
English and French
Prismatic
2010

Mouvement, no. 56

Paris, France
 
pp. 80-85
French edition
Figures
2009

France Fiction

Paris, France
 
 
French edition
Série des séries
2009

Art21

New York, USA
March, 2009
 
English edition