Galerie Eric Mouchet presents Two Cups Stuffed the first solo exhibition of Pierre Gaignard in Paris from January 30 to 5 March, 2016.

Pierre Gaingard is what one would call a nomad. He permanently relocates himself in order to develop both his film projects and his sculptural projects. Raised on American TV culture from the 1990s, his work is steeped in fantasy clichés that find themselves in-between reality and fiction, as if directing a scene of intrigue in his own life.

The title of the exhibition 2 Cups Stuffed refers to a hit by Young Thug, a famous rapper from Atlanta starting to break into the European music scene. Fascinated by this new American rap icon, Pierre Gaignard created a fictional biopic from images found on the Internet. Thanks to this body of private photographs taken from the Internet is it as authentic as possible. The film is actually the result of a fantasy story by the artist, about two protagonists: Young Thug and his brother, the narrator of the story.

From the point of view of his brother, the story follows the life of the rapper in Atlanta, intoxicated by the excess of this global city. In some of these pirated videos, Pierre Gaignard was intrigued by a machine that supposedly tested the wear and tear of sneakers in laboratories belonging to Adidas. He reproduced it in order to possess it during a residency in 2015 at Summerlake, Annecy, under the commission of Thierry Mouillé. He named it Mouvement vers une sémantique de Fils2pute (D’Après Adidas Lab) (Movement towards Fils2pute semantics (From Adidas Lab). A metaphorical criticism of the incessant activity of capitalist society, the imitation of this machine created by Adidas also highlights his interest in all forms of counterfeiting.

In effect, the violation of rights is a recurring issue in the ensemble of works by Pierre Gaignard, like the pirated videos for the creation of the biopic about Young Thug or the film Tutta la mia Roba (2015) projected at the exhibition. During Pierre Gaignard’s residency at Abruzzes, Italy, the artist witnessed the craft of Arrosticini production (lamb skewers). In the course of this anthropological experience the farmer confessed to him that he trafficked flint. Pierre then recreated this declaration, still juggling between simulation and dissimulation, placing the human at the heart of his work.

Pierre Gaignard was born in 1986 and lives and works between France and Italy. He graduated from the Ecole Régionale des Beaux Arts de Rennes, the Ecole Nationale Supérieur des Beaux-Arts in Lyons and was a researcher at the Ecole Supérieur d’Art de la Réunion, all respected French art institutions.