US $ 60
UK £ 40

February 2011
HARDCOVER
Artist Monograph


ISBN 13: 978-1-55595-332-4
ISBN: 1-55595-332-8
288 pages
9 x 12 in.
23 x 31 cm.
150 color plates

♦ Jean–Pierre Vorlet’s work is an important addition to the collage and decollage art movements pioneered by Francois Dufrene, Raymond Hains, and Jacques Villeglé

Jean-Pierre Vorlet’s images are created from the found source material of wall posters all over the world. Whether they incorporate a snatch of Italian or a word or two in French, the visual language of the final photographs is Vorlet’s own. The defaced posters that have fascinated and preoccupied him for some 40 years communicate, finally, through color and fragmented graphics, with huge pieces of letters or numerals becoming artifacts in and of themselves—unearthed shards of meaning in a new, multilayered context.

The collective messaging of these photographs demands that the spectator walk alongside the posters, perhaps even daring to reach up and tear off a piece. Challenging the idea of what makes art public or private, Vorlet is often known to exhibit his art outside—exposed to the elements like the posters he salvaged. His posters come from Geneva, Zurich, New York, Naples, and Paris. For Vorlet, in the heart of the city, art is closer to the everyday life. He thinks that reality holds aesthetic qualities within itself, and that his job is simply to reveal them.