Deborah Bowmann, a French artist duo, returns to Bordeaux to present their exhibition "Back in Ten Minutes" featuring their collection "Backgrounds (Monday to Sunday)" composed of 7 abstract wall pieces made from fabrics of classic business suits. Through this collection, Deborah Bowmann aims to establish itself as an independent art brand while also confronting the commercial logic of late capitalism and aesthetics of entrepreneurship. The paintings are meant to be viewed functionally as background decorations, acting as a time-out from art and revealing the trap of reducing workers to conceptualized forms.

1. Deborah Bowmann, a duo made up of French artists Amaury Daurel and Victor Delestre,
returns for the first time to Bordeaux, a city that symbolizes their homeland, a city that has
seen them grow and start with their first experiments in arts.
Deborah Bowmann comes back as a strategic shift, as a judicious marketing choice
seeking to refine and radicalize its communication. It is with neck-ties tied around the neck
and the body shot with caffeine that the two artists concealed under a name sounding like
that of a multinational, come back and present the exhibition "Back in ten minutes" where
is displayed the collection " Backgrounds (Monday to Sunday) "composed of a series of 7
wall pieces.
Deborah Bowmann, through this series devoted to fantasy, glory and attitude as an extra-
commercial stance, aims to establish itself as an independent brand of objects that it
presents, thus also seeking permanent self-celebration.
The exhibition "Back in ten minutes", at Silicone, from December 17, 2015 to January 17,
2016, presents one of what appears to be seven abstract paintings mixing different fabrics
of the classic three-piece suit: blazer, tie and shirt. At first glance, we can see
reminiscences straight out of the history of French art of the 1960s. Close to the decorative
dimension of the movement support / surface, these works, made from costume fabrics act
as a flattening of the uniform of the contractor or the commercial lambda-guy ; decorative
back-grounds in front of which we could, as visitors, stand and pose for a photo.
Entrepreneurial strategies make use of contemporary art in their showcase as a display for
their latest objects, young people in charge of communication think of advertisements
inspired by the great hours of art of the past years, then it is up to artists to produce new
objects with the help, for example, the sloughing of those bright-smiling squamates. In
addition to the aesthetic recovery, it is in the context of "Backgrounds (Monday to Sunday)"
to apply the noisy methods of commercial communication to the work of art. Here lies
perhaps the power of this new collection, more radical and more offensive than the
previous ones. Deborah Bowmann places the serial production of a work of art face to face
with that of the large-scale reproduction of the manufactured object.
The two artists confront the commercial logic of late capitalism with posture and artistic
production. They do not only borrow its aesthetic, but confront the history of art, on which
every young artist capitalizes, and the posture of the young entrepreneur seeking to find a
place in the world of business and consumers to aesthetic repetitions and discursive
haunting. In the continuity of the other productions of Deborah Bowman, these works
oscillate between the object of art and the functional object - in this case, the object of
communication furnishing the showcase literally of the store. It is the meaningless image,
the advertising stereotype, the hollow emblem, that this series refers to.
The painting becomes a simple decoration in the same way as lambdas photographs
decorating the waiting room of a CEO, the packing box of mobile phone or the photo-
background for sports interview. All this takes place in the continuity of the furniture
produced by the two young artists. Semi-autonomous furniture, also close to what is found
in the windows of the biggest brands. Object polymorphic, object fetish as well as
accessory.
We need to look at these paintings from a functional point of view as we could use a
pedestal or a coffee table. If we focus on the title of the exhibition, "Back in ten minutes",
we can, in addition to the explicit link with the message potentially left on a post-it,
consider these works as a time-out of an absence of art. The duo of artists tends here to
produce simple, clean and impersonal forms.
The economy of the work, the economy of the product, its origin, its constraints, are hidden
behind colors, textures and forms intended for the consumer, somewhere between minimal
art and the image of advertising communication. We are facing this series like we would
face the production of a factory that would not let any feeling or personality leak out . The

2. worker is decomposed and conceptualized into a form. Yet we do not have to understand
this as a repulsive and profane posture.
Those who follow the work of Deborah Bowmann have already seen them running on
skates, distributing their business cards in the streets of Amsterdam. The entrepreneur is
also them, proposing a production of works of art in series and collections. In an impulse
as serious as humorous, they tend to redefine the codes and symbols of the
entrepreneurial world, being located in a space between rich and dangerous: critical artists
of an intractable world, but who also try to retain its better part. The ability to project,
seduce and find autonomy.
The canvas of the painting, the emblem of art, is torn out and replaced by the dark and
authoritarian coldness of the (business) costume. Just like Patrick Bateman, art itself is
just not there. What we face is nothing but the revelation of a trap that is up to us to thwart.
The pattern of a well-fitting three-piece-costume, the falsely loquacious abstract form and
the photograph of a packaging, flash together like warnings : the object before us is an
illusion.
Deborah Bowmann, through this exhibition, invites us to question the economy behind the
void of the work presented as a simple background, as a simple function.