Sylvie Fleury: Turn Me On

A ‘punk feminist in disguise’, as she calls herself, sinc the late 1980s Sylvie Fleury has been confronting the mechanisms of the production of desire and construction of value, and how they interact with gender politics. Objects, symbols and imageries from diverse fields – fashion, cinema, pop subcultures, science fiction – are absorbed into Fleury’s visual vocabulary and employed to construct unexpected narratives, that question the paradigms of Western art history. This publication accompanies the exhibition of the same name at the Pinacoteca Agnelli in Turin, the most complete so far dedicated to the artist in Italy: it is not a traditional catalogue but a magazine, a favourite object of Fleury, both as a cultural fetish capable of providing a snapshot of its time, and as a tool of self-definition. Art theories and practices are channeled into a fashion magazine, in columns, short essays, fashion spreads, glossaries, interviews, advertising, and, obviously, a horoscope; beside the texts, the publication features spreads, including exclusive behind-the-scenes images of Fleury’s videos and installations, some never-before-seen photos unearthed from her archives, and a shoot of artist in the Lingotto.