Gilles Barbier

Gilles Barbier works in installations, drawings, photographs, objects and sculptures--including figures that have been compared to Duane Hansonís--creating complex and wryly funny settings that combine his own study of science, linguistics, psychology and philosophy with familiar cultural spheres. LíHospice (The Nursing Home), which made an appearance at the Whitney a few years ago, shows superheroes--including the dwindling Hulk, a bedridden Captain America and Superman on a walker--at the age they would be if they were born in the year of their copyrights. My Living Room is a Martian Colony is not the only piece to attach a long text to each element in the work, in this case beginning with the cactus and including the couch and the art on the wall. Barbier's work is accompanied here by several substantial and enlightening interviews.