PAST EXHIBITION

M/M (Paris)

February 17, 2006—March 25, 2006

PRESS RELEASE
M/M (PARIS)
HAUNCH OF VENISON/
VENISON OF HAUNCH
February 17 - March 25, 2006

M/M (Paris) is a partnership between Mathias Augustyniak and Michael Amzalag. Refusing to be pigeon-holed, their diverse practice in the art, music and fashion fields re-appraises the nature of communication and the formation of identity. M/M has for many years worked in close collaboration with artists including Phillipe Parreno, Pierre Huyghe, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, and Gabriella Fridriksdottir and has presented collaborative works at each of the past four Venice Biennales, in addition to exhibitions at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts in 2001, and at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris in 2005. M/M's work shares many formal properties and conceptual concerns with the "Design Art" movement which, during the past fifteen years, has become an increasingly important practice within contemporary art. This exhibition surveys the breadth of their practice over the past five years, and brings together a selection of key works made in a wide variety of media including posters, speakers, free-standing picture frames (see image above), plexiglas lamps, and carpet tiles.

The selection of works, and the design of the exhibition aim to encourage a reappraisal of the nature and formation of identity by considering, in particular, Haunch of Venison and M/M (Paris). The exhibition opens with large plexiglas letters spelling out the words, Haunch of Venison, and on the top floor these words are mirrored in a further installation that spells out Venison of Haunch. M/M is interested in exploring the importance of the gallery's name in establishing the identity of the space. The people visiting or working in the space form a central part of the exhibition, and M/M use screen-printed mirrors throughout the gallery to re-present the viewer, alongside the printed images, as both the subject and object of the artwork, as well as helping to literally form a part of the gallery's identity. The use of mirrors, reversing the words, as well as redesigning the gallery spaces by building a room within a room are part of their project of exposing and exploring the gallery's identity by turning it inside out and upside down.

M/M is interested in how different contexts cause the same work to be read in different ways and, by foregrounding the gallery's identity, the designers draw attention to the fact that it is the space's designation as an art gallery that encourages the objects displayed within it to be read as art. The exhibition includes plates, mugs and t-shirts, and their everyday consumer forms are a humorous challenge to this orthodoxy.

On the top floor a series of framed portraits memoralise their sitters in words rather than visual images. They are written by Stephanie Cohen and presented in M/M's decorative typeface. The portraits present a cross-section of people they've met or worked with, from the designers' friends, including Björk and Kate Moss, to artists such as Douglas Gordon. Visitors to the gallery are encouraged to commission their own portraits, and add to the series. These text portraits are also a reflection on the commemoration of individual and collective identity in art history, through the traditional genre of portraiture.

The exhibition presents a selection of key works that have been made for different reasons, and at different times. By bringing together these diverse objects and re-contexualising them within an installation whose every element has been designed, the exhibition encourages the viewer to build up a picture of M/M's own identity and subjectivity as it has manifested itself in their various collaborative projects. This common identity can be traced in their interest in exploring the nature and forms of communication, and the decorative, baroque form of much of their work. Books form an important archive of their work and give it a different context. The second floor of the gallery presents a library space designated by huge posters of bookshelves whose design is based on re-interpreting titles of works by Liam Gillick, taken from their collaborative book, Malaga. A second book on display is Le Grand Livre, a book M/M designed to accompany the exhibition of their works in a deconsecrated chapel in Chaumont in 2003. The book contains texts on their work by curators, Cristina Ricupero and Hans Ulrich Obrist.

Michael Amzalag studied at the Ecole Natoinale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris and Mathias Augustyniak studied at the Royal College of Arts, London. After leaving art school, they co-founded M/M in 1992. From their Paris studio, they have forged longstanding collaborations with fashion designers including Yohji Yamamoto, Martine Sitbon, Jil Sander, Calvin Klein and Nicolas Ghesquiere at Balenciaga, the photographers Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin, many artists including Pierre Huyghe, Philippe Parreno, and Björk for
whom they directed their first video ( Hidden Place, 2000), designed several albums and designed and edited her book, Björk. Between 2001 and 2003 they were creative consultants and art directors for one of the world leadings
fashion magazines, Vogue Paris, and in 2002 they designed with Pierre Huyghe and Philippe Parreno, Etienne Marcel, a café in Paris. M/M is showing work at Art Basel Miami in December 2005, and designing the catalogue for Pierre
Huyghe's upcoming exhibition at Tate Modern, London. The Haunch of Venison exhibition will be accompanied by a book which catalogues their art works, posters and editions.

For further press information and images please contact: Calum Sutton
Phone: +44 (0) 20 7495 5050 or email: calum@haunchofvenison.com

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