Catalog published on the occasion of the Josephine Meckseper exhibition presented at the Frac des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou, from March 9 to May 26, 2019 and at the HAB Galerie, Nantes, from February 9 to April 21, 2019.
Over the past two decades, Josephine Meckseper has worked on making installations, sculptures, paintings and films, which simultaneously show and integrate multiple signifiers such as advertising, political images and everyday objects in order to ‘initiate an exploration through the collective unconscious of our time.
The Frac des Pays de la Loire is the first institution to present a major solo exhibition of Josephine Meckseper on French territory. Organized at the Frac, at Carquefou and at the Galerie HAB which is associated with it in Nantes, this double exhibition, with a surface area of over two thousand square meters, brings together a large selection of works by the artist produced over the past fifteen years. Josephine Meckseper sparks a dialogue both around the genre and between different scales by welcoming into the exhibition twenty works by artists from the Frac collection: Becky Beasley, Karla Black, Kate Blacker, Katinka Bock, Monica Bonvicini, Melanie Counsell , Jason Dodge, Lili Dujourie, Valie Export, Claire Fontaine, Michel Gerson, Johannes Kahrs, Sister Corita Kent, Sherrie Levine, Louise Lawler, Jack Pierson, Martha Rosler and Rosemarie Trockel. The artist’s large-scale sculptures and installations intersect with the imposing works of Karla Black, Monica Bonvicini and Melanie Counsell, while works by Valie Export, Michel Gerson and Jack Pierson, among others, deconstruct traditional norms of the kind. By designing wooden and mirrored shelves specifically for certain works in the Frac collection, Josephine Meckseper introduces an additional conceptual mode of presentation and storytelling to the pieces she has organized in both venues.