Joel Ducorroy: Oeuvres – 1986 – 1993

The exhibition, curated by Émilie Flory, traces the formative years of Joël Ducorroy’s career, bringing together works that established his singular use of language as a visual medium. Shortly after graduating from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the artist began creating objects composed of licence plates, initially fabricated at the BHV registration stand. This approach led Jean-Claude Lange, a friend of Raymond Hains, to suggest the title of “plaquetitien artist,” which Ducorroy readily adopted.

Between 1986 and 1993, he developed a body of work that merged humour, wordplay, and visual culture, offering a light-hearted yet incisive critique of contemporary art. This exhibition revisits those first eight years of collaboration, which also saw the publication of his earliest editions. It highlights an artist who chose to go against the grain of his time, proposing new ways of understanding both objects and images through the lens of language.