With an exhibition dedicated to Claire Fontaine, the Atelier Hermès' 2024 programme opens with a politically charged artistic proposal. Since her creation in Paris in 2004, this "collective artist" - a gendered identity referred to with singular female pronouns - has consciously sought to take up and rework existing references and works of art in order to develop an aesthetic of repetition rather than one that relies upon the creation of new and ostensibly "original" works. Claire Fontaine's name pays homage to Marcel Duchamp's Fountain (1917), an influence that is reflected in the title of her exhibition at the Atelier Hermès: "Beauty is a Ready-made". 

Ten of her works are presented here, including neon sculptures from the ‘Foreigners Everywhere’ series, whose title inspired that of the 60th Venice Biennale that will open in spring 2024. Claire Fontaine offers an incisive and critical take on the patriarchy, the climate crisis and global inequality, proclaiming that "art has become a place for political refugees.” On display for the first time here, her work Cut-up offers an illustration of this belief. It explores the history and cultural complexity of migration in the town of Palermo (Italy), where the collective lives and works, and asks whether, in the face of political disempowerment, art might have the power to transform the world.

Heecheon Kim (b. 1989) is a leading figure in South Korean post-Internet art, with work that questions the very nature of our contemporary society. Using video and a host of new technologies familiar to his generation since their early childhood, he sets out to depict their shared depressive tendencies and frustration in the face of the future. As the laureate of the 20th Hermès Foundation Missulsang, Heecheon Kim has been invited to exhibit at the Atelier Hermès, where he continues to interrogate our present era through his exhibition "Studies". There, he presents a fiction film that gives the exhibition its title. Drawing on the horror film genre, Studies follows a high school wrestling team as they deal with a sudden disappearance on the eve of a national competition. In this 30-minute format, Heecheon Kim reworks the codes of horror films to offer a powerful exploration of the psychological states experienced by each character, and reflects upon the essence of fear in an age dominated by technology.