For the Platform section of the 2023 edition of The Armory Show, curated by Eva Respini, Galerie Lelong & Co., New York is pleased to present Urban Requiem (2015), an installation by Barthélémy Toguo.
The installation is comprised of a series of ladders holding life-size portrait busts sculpted from Iroko wood. The floor beneath these structures is covered by images of boxes used to ship bananas, an element that recurs across a selection of Toguo’s installations. The busts function as stamps, with the recognizable calls to action of recent protest movements, from #MeToo to #BlackLivesMatter, carved into their bases. Oversized in comparison to a traditional stamp, these functional sculptures require significant effort to utilize, parodying administrative gestures.
