Filliou’s ideas and artistic strategies allowed for a critical stance towards both the pretensions of serious culture and economy of consumer capitalism. He thought of his works as instruments for our apprehension, tools of permanent creation and driving forces of change; art was not an end in itself and his propositions applied to everyday life, both social and politically. In the exhibition Dear Skywatcher we can also find echoes of a more passionate Filliou, based on notions of friendship, pity and love, for example, in Poeme Collectif (Robert Filliou et Cie) (1968), an exquisite corpse made in collaboration with Filliou and the public (Filliou et Cie); and other references to the artist’s existentialist character —questioning life, the void, concepts of infinity, zero, origin and time— as in his artwork The Speed of Art (1979), a mathematical function that seeks to overcome the separation between art and life demonstrating their existence in the same framework of time and space.
NoguerasBlanchard
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