Artist: Ricardo Passaporte
Exhibition title: Exciting Love
Venue: Ruttkowski;68, Paris, France
Date: November 3 – December 2, 2018
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Ruttkowski;68
Ricardo Passaporte shops at Lidl, Tesco, and Ikea. He loves the ordinariness of consumerism and the casualness of the brands that surround us, which are part of our everyday life – even though we never choose them consciously.
With his airbrush paintings on canvas, Passaporte reflects on the relation of art and consumerism. Rather than approaching this analytically, he gets highly personal. It is not about the cultural struggles between major companies and the consuming society. The artist instead gets close to the brands, in order to depict their aesthetics and an underlying elegance, both which disappear behind shelf racks when strolling through the supermarket quickly.
Passaporte thereby puts himself into the tradition of pop art but goes a step further from that
point on. In Exciting Love, the first solo exhibition of the artist in Paris, brands become equal interlocutors in a discussion on consumerism, brand identity, and iconography.
Ricardo Passaporte, Exciting Love, 2018, exhibition view, Ruttkowski;68, Paris
Ricardo Passaporte, The Ring, 2018, Acrylic airbrush on canvas, 150x120cm
Ricardo Passaporte, Inside Sports, 2018, Acrylic airbrush on canvas, 150x120cm
Ricardo Passaporte, Sports Illustrated, 2018, Acrylic airbrush on canvas, 150x120cm
Ricardo Passaporte, Exciting Love, 2018, exhibition view, Ruttkowski;68, Paris
Ricardo Passaporte, Foot Locker Catalog, 2018, Airbrush acrylic on canvas, 150x120cm
Ricardo Passaporte, Exciting Love, 2018, exhibition view, Ruttkowski;68, Paris
Ricardo Passaporte, Coronet, 2018, Acrylic airbrush on canvas, 150x120cm
Ricardo Passaporte, Exciting Love, 2018, Airbrush acrylic on canvas, 150x120cm
Ricardo Passaporte, Exciting Love, 2018, exhibition view, Ruttkowski;68, Paris
Ricardo Passaporte, IKEA Catalog, 2018, Airbrush acrylic on canvas, 150x120cm
Ricardo Passaporte, LIDL Catalog, 2018, Airbrush acrylic on canvas, 150x120cm
Ricardo Passaporte, Exciting Love, 2018, exhibition view, Ruttkowski;68, Paris