Saâdane Afif — the Fountain Archives (INDEX) — Michèle didier Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: June 2 → July 23, 2022

Saâdane Afif — Centre Pompidou Invité à présenter au Centre Pompidou ses Fountain Archives, Saâdane Afif rend un hommage appuyé à Marcel Duchamp tout en entraînant cette œuvre symbolique dans un champ conceptuel qui en poursuit le geste initial.

Since 2008, Saâdane Afif has been collecting photographic reproductions of Duchamp’s Fountain urinal issues various books and magazines.

An almost Sisyphean undertaking, given that the work appears to be fundamental to the history of art, the artist has attempted to circumscribe his gesture since the beginning of the project by envisaging closing his series at the thousand and first reference. The project has now come to an end with the upcoming publication of The Fountain Archives (INDEX) published by mfc-michèle didier.

The artist has collected a number of works in which Marcel Duchamp’s famous urinal appears, whether it be it a magazine, an encyclopaedia, an art book or even a brochure.

In this way he has built up a library of references, with the condition of a reproduction of Duchamp’s work determining the action of collecting. The references are arranged in chronological order of discovery, without any other classification filter. He then tore out each of the pages reproducing the work, taking care to index it and precisely source it.

After this gesture, the medium is immediately transformed into a mould and joins the library of The Fountain Archives. Each torn page was scanned and inventoried. The original, framed pages were dispersed on the art market, integrating various public and private collections. They have been presented in several exhibitions: at the Museo Jumex (Mexico City, 2019), at the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco (Monaco, 2017), at the Centre Pompidou (Paris, 2017), at the West in Huis Huguetan (The Hague, 2017) and at the Taipei Biennial (Taipei, 2016), among others.

Now closed, the project has resulted in the production of a work in the form of an Index, restoring the entirety of the pages taken from the various references in the archive-collection.