Sylvie Fleury

German/English text.
Over the last decade Swiss artist Sylvie Fleury (born in Geneva, 1961) has brought luxury consumer goods from the fashion and cosmetic industries into the context of art. Her "ready-mades" include shopping bags by Yamamoto, cosmetics by Chanel, and shoes by Claude Montana. Her repertoire draws on the synthetic ideal of feminine beauty promoted by such things as the covers of fashion magazines, scenes from workout videos, and even celebrity advertising for diet products. By reframing elements of visual culture marketed specifically to a female audience as artworks she proposes a radical and ironic feminist perspective on the cultural and social meaning of shopping that asks why women are placed in the role of society's principal consumers. This book is the first comprehensive look at the work of this artist -- whose pieces reflect a larger critique of both consumerism and sexism.