The purpose of the assignement was to choose a location in Paris, analyse its signage system and/or communication strategy, and create a book made out exclusively of photos of the place, punctuated by quotes or texts illustrating the angle of the analysis we had made.

 

I chose to work on the Palais de Tokyo, one of my favorite places in Paris, a constant source of inspiration, a fuel for curiosity and creativity. The Palais de Tokyo is a museum devoted to contemporary art in Europe created in 2002. It is described as an ‘anti-museum par excellence’ because of its offbeat atmosphere and the voluntarily undevelopped and unfinished interior design. The inside of the museum has been left as though partially built, with electrical wires showing, bricks coming out of unpolished concrete walls, perpetually under construction. The exhibitions hosted by the museum are usually interactive and conceptual, unusual and imaginative.

 

This book demonstrates the constant work in progress that is contemporary art in the museum’s signage system.
I chose to express this apparent mess by making the book itself a mess, a jumble of photos overlaping one another, each page revealing the ones underneath while creating new images when superimposed. The photos are printed on regular or tracing paper and each page has a different size, so that the superimposition of images is emphasized. The book becomes interactive for the reader who has to turn the pages and open unexpected flaps to see another image.

 

The text used to complete the concept comes from quotes from Dada artists and writers, and portions of the theater play ‘Art’ by Yasmina Reza. They all question the definition and notion of art as a movement in the modern world and its impact on each and every one of us.