Thierry Geoffroy | ColonelA PROPULSIVE RETROSPECTIVE. Format Art | Awareness Muscle | Emergency Art | Ultracontemporary | Biennalist | Moving Exhibitions | Critical Run | Delay Museum | Apathy Lab | Extracteur

Following his solo exhibition, THE AWARENESS MUSCLE TRAINING CENTER, the Villa Stuck and Snoeck are pleased to present the first comprehensive monograph on THIERRY GEOFFROY / COLONEL. The multifaceted work of the conceptual artist, born in Nancy (France) in 1961, can be traced here across more than four decades. He is probably best known for the formats of his EMERGENCY ART.
“Thierry Geoffroy/ Colonel: A Propulsive Retrospective” presents 22 different Art Formats, among them EMERGENCY ROOM, CRITICAL RUN and BIENNALIST, which he has presented at institutions around the world. Geoffroy describes his Format Art as an artistic response to globalisation, with which he offers the individual a form that can be called upon again and again in order to express themselves, thus enabling everyone to react to emergencies and real problems in the here and now.
Through Format Art and other ULTRACONTEMPORARY art concepts, Geoffroy has sought to address social and political grievances and has also shown how artists can find solutions. This monograph analyses the forms that represent Geoffroy’s art from its beginnings to the present, devoting individual chapters to his photography, his painting, his language-based works, his media art and the exhibition platforms.
In this monograph, art historians and long-standing companions of the artist offer in-depth analyses of his artistic practice, that is, of his mobility and flexibility as well as his constant endeavour to remain one step „ahead“ of chance and of his time. Accompanied by more than 1,000 illustrations, their contributions show how carefully Geoffroy conceives his works in order to convey and channel messages on the themes of identity, migration, war, propaganda or climate change. A comprehensive chronology of Geoffroy’s work, listing his numerous exhibitions and interventions at countless institutions and events, reveals the full breadth and the continuous ambition of the artist to make people aware of their true potential for action in the face of crises.
Geoffroy’s productive output, strongly determined by a sense of urgency, is nevertheless marked by sociability, generosity and, above all, a sense of harmony. Geoffroy’s work is strategically frontal, poetic, humorous, self-critical and critical of institutions, but also profoundly personal. His irrepressible energy has given rise to an art movement of its own, at the centre of which stands “Emergency Art,” questioning the state of “delay” that paralyses contemporary art and the world around it.
The subtitle of this monograph, “A Propulsive Retrospective,” stands for the “forward-looking” character of this publication, which condenses and analyses the past while at the same time seeking to help drive forward the mission of combating apathy in the future. The publication is accompanied by a series of international presentations and seminars in which the theses of Geoffroy’s work are to be set out, further promoted, explored and deepened.