A comprehensive examination of the Swiss artist’s colorful homage to Oldenberg’s soft sculpture installations

Swiss mixed-media artist Sylvie Fleury (born 1961) has long been interested in depicting the juncture of materialism and materiality in contemporary consumer culture. Her 1998 installation Bedroom Ensemble II draws directly from soft sculpture artist Claes Oldenberg, who also created bedroom installations under the same title; through inconsistent scale and unusual textures, Oldenberg’s bedroom suggests a disconnect from reality that becomes more apparent the longer one studies the piece. Fleury’s piece amplifies and subverts such ideas with her own vocabulary of textures and colors. While Oldenberg’s bedroom is a particularly cold example of 1960s interior design, Fleury’s piece bursts with vitality, practically begging viewers to touch the colorful faux fur that covers every stick of furniture in the installation. This book is the first comprehensive study of Bedroom Ensemble II and its relationship to the other Fleury pieces in MAMCO Geneva’s collection.