Geodesic Dome is a sculptural work by Ill-Studio exhibited in
Paris in 2008. Ill-Studio imagined a fictional encounter between designer Rei Kawakubo and architect Richard Buckminster Fuller.
At the occasion of 2010 soccer World Cup in South Africa, Ill-Studio was appointed by Nike to transform its Parisian gallery into a temple celebrating the game of soccer.
«Ill-Studio? I first considered them as “contemporary aesthetes”. This could look like an oxymoron, a contradiction : the aesthete, in its old and dandy-est sense, is all about disdain for democratic productions, industrial civilization artifacts and popular surfaces, and for this crowd he snubs with his aristocratic taste.
You can find this in Ill-Studio’s work since 2007: whatever they’re asked to work on, they showcase the evidence of a cult of beauty, managing to combine minimalism with that kind of preciousness that may lead to esotericism.
The style is their style, before displaying any technical know-how or graphico-conceptual protocol. Except that this true “hyperesthesia disease” (illness?) does not only apply to quality items, but to some indifferently high or low forms of contemporary culture. This is the artistic direction that will be showcased during their exhibition Fetishistic Scopophilia : highlighting visual obsessions, to exhibit references, to taste raw materials.»
Text by Jean-Max Colard
Artist Anri Sala and curator Christine Macel appointed Ill-Studio to create the identity of the French Pavillon during the 2013 edition of the Venice Biennalle. The resulting project was a minimalistic interpretation of Anri Sala’s take on Maurice Ravel ‘Concerto pour la main gauche’ adapted to various forms and mediums.
Ill-Studio was commissioned to take care of the art direction for the Quiz catalogue and exhibition by Austrian-born and Paris-based designer Robert Stadler together with Alexis Vaillant, chief curator at CAPC Contemporary Art Museum of Bordeaux.
Quiz is a collection of over seventy objects straddling the fine line between functional art and abstraction in industrial design.
The exhibition featured works by : Richard Artschwager, Martin Creed, Tea Jorjadze, Dario Guccio, Donald Judd, Amalia Pica, Ron Arad, Paul Cocksedge, Laureline Gaillot, Konstantin Grcic, and Gio Ponti.