François Rancillac

The aim of Rancillac’s paintings, objects, installations, and interventions is to break down established clichés and habits. The artist takes visual, symbolic, verbal, and recently also audio conventions that the viewer frequently recognizes, and places them within new, usually non-literal, contexts. He combines and interchanges motifs from the worlds of high-brow and low-brow, pop culture and subculture, with an interest in the tensions thus created. His interventions are simple, based only on a shift in meaning or turning meaning on its head. He also questions his own standing within art: for instance, for an exhibition that was offered to him at the last moment, he exhibited only color gaiters. Rancillac’s work is permeated by a contextual awareness. In his project entitled “Geranium,” he wrote this word in red on a large street-facing parapet, encouraging all of the street’s residents to place red geraniums in their windows. -ej-