Michel Blazy (born Monaco 1966, lives and works in Paris) has a long history of working with organic materials and is interested in exploring the beauty of decay and the poetic possibilities of the passing of time as these materials are allowed to deteriorate over the course of an exhibition.

The artist’s repertoire to date has included a large mushroom-like form made entirely of soy noodles; sculptures constructed of squeezed-out orange halves; paintings of mashed potato and beetroot purée; pizza paintings and pasta sculptures, and a sculptural grotto on which mung beans sprouted and grew over the period of display. Opening up the controlled environment of the museum to the unpredictability of natural processes and effectively creating a multi-sensory and ever-changing experience as these perishable materials physically change, Blazy’s installations encourage audiences to question notions of repulsion and disgust and re-think our assumptions about aesthetic beauty.

Up for only the 24-hour period of White Night Melbourne, Final bouquet 2 is not to be missed. In some ways the wonder of these quick turn-around events is the fact that once over, you could almost be fooled into believing that the presence of a work such as this only existed in your imagination, as by the time the gallery re-opens at 10am on Sunday morning, every trace of its existence will be gone.

He was quite specific that the secondary walls had to be full height to create a sense of beautiful rooms rather than a space that has been partitioned.  Once this was done he began work on the layout of the show. He carefully planned the sequence in which you would encounter each work, setting up an interesting play between the works.  How we read these is an entirely individual experience.  Recently someone said to me that they thought the placement of Lichtung/Clearing next to Paneel/Pegboard was an interesting comment on forest clearing and the devastating impact that pulp mills can have on the environment. Until then I had never seen those works in that way.

In conversation during the installation, Thomas explained that he was not interested in putting together an exhibition that then toured around the world.  The usual practice of curating an exhibition and then ‘fitting’ it into different exhibition spaces in a number of venues holds little interest for him.  So each time you see a Thomas Demand exhibition it has been curated, designed and installed for that particular space.

This is perhaps most obvious when you enter the rooms where the films are showing. From the brightly lit first room you can see through the door way into a darkened room lined

with floor to ceiling curtains, but not really. What you see is a darkened room hung with wallpaper that the artist made to look like the kind of sweeping curtains that you might find in a cinema or theatre.  It’s theatrical and spectacular but once you enter this space the real treat is Demands films.

Hear NGV Curators talk about Thomas Demand and his work here.

Watch the In Conversation with Jeff Wall and Thomas Demand here.