What if strolling in front of a shop window was only for shopaholics? Until March 8, 2025, the Galerie Sultana in the Marais district of Paris is offering a free exhibition by Harry Nuriev, the enfant terrible of design and founder of Crosby Studios. His installation, Lèche-Vitrines, turns the sacred tool of consumerism into an artistic manifesto. Empty bottles, faded creams and half-full shampoos... are displayed in a completely new light!
It's the story of a window display that looks like it's straight out of a department store... except that, behind the panes, it's not luxury goods but neglected objects. Used bottles, crumpled tubes, snatches of everyday life, these "rejects" - donated by relatives of the artist - become sculptures thanks to Nuriev's alchemy. His credo is Transformism, a way of transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary. This magician of objects, whose work includes computer keyboard mirrors and rugs made from underpants, goes one step further: he not only changes the object, he changes the way we look at it.
Beneath its mischievous exterior, Lèche-Vitrines hides a sharp critique of the "always more" society. Harry Nuriev asks the question that makes department store shelves tremble: "What will be left of our world in 50 years' time?" Will the planet be able to withstand the insatiable appetite of consumers for much longer? With his display cases filled with used products, the artist proposes an alternative: rather than endlessly replacing, why not sublimate what already exists?
In addition to being eco-friendly, this extreme makeover of objects invites us to reenchant our lives. An old shampoo becomes a relic, an empty bottle tells a story... What if this was true luxury?
For Nuriev, the exhibition itself is an object to be hijacked. The shop window, queen of the boulevards and icon of capitalism since the XIXᵉ century, goes into blackout mode here. In a dark, almost disquieting staging, it loses its function as a desire machine to become an emotional showcase.
References abound. Émile Zola already described shop windows as lust traps in Au Bonheur des Dames. But where department store windows used to lure us into a spiral of consumerist frustration, Nuriev reverses the trend. Behind the transparency of glass, there are no longer new goods, but traces of life, fragments of humanity.
The objects on display come from Harry Nuriev's entourage. Each perfume tells the story of a person, each cream evokes a memory. More than a nod to capitalism, it's a tender nod to community. No monster sales here, but an invitation to rethink our relationship with objects, with each other, with the world.
So, would you like to feast your eyes without emptying your wallet? Head for Harry Nuriev's first solo exhibition in France!
Dates and Opening Time
From January 21, 2025 to March 8, 2025
Location
Sultana Gallery
75 Rue Beaubourg
75003 Paris 3
Access
Metro 3 or 11 Arts et Métiers
Prices
Free
Official website
galeriesultana.com
