FIGHTING TALK

In his first interview for an Asian publication, Paris-based contemporary artist MATHIAS KISS discusses heritage, craft, anger and subversion with Jing Zhang.

- Jing Zhang

At the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille last year, artist Mathias Kiss showed an in-situ mirror pool installation, a sculptural work called Besoin d’Air. The view from the glass atrium ceiling of the museum shows a distorted picture of blue sky and white clouds, reflected and refracted on mirrors on the floor below. This peculiar sky, inspired by an 18th-century painting, is dramatic and emotive, like its museum surroundings, with shimmering mirrored and pixelated basin. Was this poignant poetry and clever manipulation of materials or a more foreboding premonition of our world today, turned upside down?

At 47, Kiss is an unconventional and celebrated artist who wanted to escape the protocol of French academic craftsmanship, after first mastering it as a teenager. Now his work, although decoding and juxtaposing the rules of European classicism, also pays tribute to French design codes and artisanship. His irreverence having paid off handsomely, Kiss today shows at respected European art and design fairs and museums. He exhibits in the likes of Galerie Alain Gutharc in Paris and Gallery Elle in Zurich, and has worked with French luxury brands Boucheron, Cartier and Hermès to create radical, artful displays.