2009
Assemblage
160 x 100 x180 cm

In 1881, Edmond de Goncourt published a minute description of the home of the Goncourt brothers in Boulevard de Montmorency, Paris. The book, La Maison d´un artiste, is essentially a catalogue of the exclusive art collections, furniture and interior details of the mansion, which also served as a literary salon that was frequented by, among others, J.K. Huysmans, author of the decandent classic A Rebours.

La La Maison d´un artiste became a great inspiration for the main character in A Rebours, the Baron des Esseintes, a young, highly sophisticated hyper-aesthete who, in an attemt to escape an unbearable loss of meaning, retires to the Paris suburbs to live a life in total isolation amongst a collection of art and literature, artificial installations and sensory devices.

This assemblage, reassembled from an old, rejected cabinet, echoes the decadent dandy and his eclectic staging of realities through carefully selected artefacts.