Reflux – Arnaud Verley & Philémon

Since 2007 Arnaud Verley & Philémon have formed a Franco-Belgian artist-duo. The tragi-comic dimension of their projects reflects their image of society. The duo makes fun of clichés and mixes the mundane with the extraordinary in paradoxical installations.

The REFLUX installation goes back to the reality of the Golden Sixties, when fuel was abundant and the car was synonymous with independency. Today, in times of oil shortages and high oil prices, the car is a luxury item and an environment-polluting vehicle that tickles our feelings of guilt. Nevertheless, despite these issues, the REFLUX car embodies: a cult object, vintage remnant, electrified relic, and a form of insanely therapeutic solar obstinacy. Without falling for fabled morals and at a time when renewable sources of energy are on the rise, the installation boldly plays the card of a cynical reality. Amid the host of current environmental debacles the artists instigate a frontal collision between nostalgia for the glory years and the inertia of futuristic enthusiasm…