Joël DUCORROY

Nationality: French

Joël Ducorroy is a word collector who plays with art, described as a neo-conceptual humorist. He found a trick: "the trick is style"—something, he believes, you only need to be able to read to understand. He adopted the title of "plaquetitien" (plate artist), a term suggested to him by Raymond Hains' friend, Jean-Claude Lange.

In 1980, he had a brief, playful verbal exchange with Serge Gainsbourg: "Et cœtera c'est adéquat" (And so on, that's adequate). To commemorate this event, he had this phrase inscribed on license plates in the same department store where Marcel Duchamp bought his bottle rack.

He embraced the plate as a medium in 1981, creating several works in a spirit close to Pop artists. These plates each designate a part of a larger object, which, when put together, reconstitute the object's form. Since then, he has exhibited continuously, notably:

In 1985, he had his first New York exhibition at the Emily Harvey gallery, which primarily championed Fluxus artists.
In 1987, a solo exhibition, again in New York, gave him the chance to meet Andy Warhol.
In 1988, he had his first exhibition at the Contemporary Art Gallery of the Museums of Nice.
In 1989, he participated in the "Color or monochrome" exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo.
In 1991, nine galleries collaborated to celebrate his ten years of work.
In the following years, much like one of his mentors, Rodtchenko, he applied his ideas across various fields such as architecture, textile design, and photography:

In late 1992, for the Confort Moderne in Poitiers, he created a significant work using over a thousand license plates, depicting the interior of a four-room apartment (F4 type).
He held a solo exhibition in 2003 at the FIAC with the baudoin lebon gallery, which has represented him since 1994.

2 MOVIES IN DISTRIBUTION

  DEUX MINUTES CINQUANTE SECONDES
1981 / color / silent / single screen / 2' 50 / 21 €
distribution: Digital file on server or Super 8
  ARBRES
1980 / color / silent / single screen / 3' 00 / 21 €
distribution: 16mm