COLETTE  

        Colette was born in Tunis, grew up in Nice before coming to the United States. In 1984 she received a DAAD grant to spend one year in Berlin and until the early 90's spent half of her time between the two continents. Currently Colette is back in New York.

Colette's art is her environment, whether it be her body, the streets, shop windows or her loft. They are all settings for her art to happen in. Colette began her career as a painter, turning to performance art, which "sets out to create a quality of experience that locates itself" in the environment. Performance art is a significant new art form and one which Colette felt could convey her meaning in a way not possible through traditional means.

Colette's environments are made of silk, satin, lace, mysterious back-lighting and "deadly feminine magic codes." Though everything in Colette's space is enveloped in soft, muted colors, off-pinks, monochromes, etc., she is hardly minimal in her soft hedonistic use of materials, recalling her early years in Tunisia where colorful Arabic rugs, tiles, and carvings cover floors and walls and give way to auras of mysticism. Above all, it is the color and soft lines of the desert sand which we experience in her environment. Her world of fantasy has become a reality.

Colette's street pieces began in 1970 when she painted "codes" on the sidewalks of Soho, her enigmatic messages to be read from above. In 1974, in Florence, on the pavement of the Piazza Michaelangelo, she drew a diagram of a room with white traffic paint and into this schematic environment she moved various pieces of baroque furniture and posed a young man in the same attitude as Michaelangelo's "David" of which a large replica loomed across the piazza. Her "David," however, played "There's no place like home"' on a harmonica. Colette writes about and conducts these pieces as performances or rituals. "I dress up for them in whatever costume I may feel appropriate at the time and usually execute them at dawn not only to avoid traffic or police harassment but also because of the associations attached to those particular hours of the day the hours when most people are just about waking from their dreams, in other words, when everything that is real appears to be unreal."

It was Colette who painted personal hieroglyphics on her nude torso with kool-Aid and eye make-up on a beach in Jamaica, who slept in the window of Rizzoli's Book Shop, dressed like a Victorian rag doll and who, with satin veiling and a World War I parachute silk, transformed her exhibitions at the showcase for performance and environmental art, P.S. 1 in New York, into a silk cocoon. Colette is part of the mysterious surrounding, truly unifying art and life.

Other body artists, who no doubt influenced her, seem to use their bodies in self-destructive antics. Colette, on the other hand, blends softly into her environmental pieces with chameleon-like subtlety. Soft, sensual and feminine in appearance, there is a dramatic paradox to her work of the tragic and comic aspect of the women she portrays.

In 1984, Soon After dismantling her legendary living environment in New York COlette was invited by the DAAD in Berlin to live and work there for a year-- it is there that the personae " Mata Hari and stolen potatoes". which became a central theme for many works made in Berlin (often including the no longer existing wall), was created. The following year, she was commissioned by the Berlin Opera to do sets & costumes for Ravel's "L'Huere Espagnole". with Berlin Came Opportunities for new beginnings and a chance to experiment with new media's and audiences.

In 1986, shortly after returning to New york, Colette made Munich her headquarters and stayed there predominantly until 1991. While still Keeping an address in N.Y.C., The Countess Reichenbach, her Bavarian manifestation, developed while in Munich. There she photographed herself in the Ludwig castles, at the Viktualien Market... and created her "Dial C for Scandal Services", from where a series of photographic works also emerged. During that time, the telephone replaced her symbol the golden potato.

In her work, Colette strives toward a unity of the organic woman-made. "My obsession with totality in my work is analogous to the desire for unity in my life. If my work has strong, emotional, physical, as well as cerebral qualities, it is because I feel that the struggle for achieving the balance of these three parts of ourselves is essential for the development of the self-which is ultimately what I am seeking." 

Colette has succeeded by subtle seduction in involving the viewer in her aesthetic-life art experience of being a biological extension of a larger universe.

"A true original. Colette has entered her fantasies to create a phenomenon that's art, fashion, theater, and attitude".
- Jeffery Deitch (Monograph "Colette 10 years of work" by politi)

"Colette has been a visionary presence on the New York Art since the early 1970's. Her Work is complex and encompasses many concepts the stretch our nations of art. She explores the role the artist play in our life, the female persona in art, and the line between fine and commercial art and fashion. Many of her ideas echoed today in the art world as well as throughout popular culture".
-Paul Tschinkel (documentary film on Colette)

EXHIBITIONS
• 1973
  • Aldrich Museum. Ridgefield Conn.
  • Silvermine Guild. New Cannan.Conn.
  • Buecker and Harpsichords.New York, N.Y.
• 1974
  • Paula Cooper Gallery. New York. N.Y.
• 1975
  • Bronx Museum. NewYork. N.Y
  • Idea Warehouse. New York. N.Y.
  • Fine Arts Building. New York. N.Y.
  • Rizzoli Bookstore. New York. N.Y.
  • French Consul. New York, N.Y
• 1976
  • Bologna Art Fair. Italy
  • P.S.1., Long Island City. N.Y.
  • Polo Gallery, New York. N.Y.
  • Avant Garde Festival. Berlin, Germany
  • Museum of Modern Art. New York. N.Y.
• 1977
  • Institute of Architecture. New York, N.Y.
  • National Gallery of Canada. Montreal. Canada
  • Basel Art Fair. Banco Gallery. Trescia, Italy
  • Cologne Art Fair, Germany
  • Hudson River Museum. New York
  • Eugenia Cucalon Gallery, New York, N.Y.
  • P.S.1.. Oueens, New York
• 1978
  • Downtown Whitney Museum. New York, N.Y.
  • Window Installation "Joan of Arc", Works & Designs, Victoria falls, NY
  • Window Installation and Performance, Fiorucci, NYC
  • "les Actions de Justine", Galleria Banco, Brescia, Italy
  • "Femme Fatale", Installation and Streetworks, E Cucalon Gallery, NYC
  • "Clearance Sale", Inst. & Works, Gillespie de Laage Gal, Paris, France
  • "Camille", Installation/Performance/Wall Fragments, MoMA, NYC

• 1979
  • "Justine's Dico Punk Church Club", Neue Galarie, Graz, Austria
  • "Justine Presents the Deadly Feminine Line", Mudd Club, NYC
• 1980
  • "Justine and the Chades", Perf. Inst & Works, Danceteria, NYC
  • Valentines Window Installation & Exhibition, Record City, NYC
  • "Justine's Special Christmas Gifts", Elizabeth Weiner Gallery, NYC
• 1981
  • "The Modern Bride", Studio 54, NYC
  • "Justine Properties of her World", New Museum, NYC
  • "Justine Goes to Hollywood", Private Home Inst., Couri Hay, NYC
  • "Justine of the Colette Is Dead Co.", Language Plus, Alba, Canada
  • "The Beautiful Dreamers", Inst. & Works, Museum of Contemporary art, Houston, Tx.
  • "Colette 1970-80", Wesfalischer Kunstverein, Munster, Germany

• 1982
  • Justine Joins La Rocka, Armageddon Nightclub, New York. N.Y.
  • "Light Boxes", Gabrielle Bryers Gallery, New York N.Y.
• 1983
  • "Headless Women", Private Viewing, 888 Park Avenue, NYC
  • "Art on Stage", Multi-media Inst. & Performance, Danceteria, NYC
• 1984
  • "There's a New Girl In Town", Perf. & Inst, Fofi's Club, Berlin, Germany
  • "Women of Influence", Amerika-Haus, Berlin, germany
• 1985
  • Art on Stage III Stadt Galerie Nordhorn, Germany
  • "From Silk to Marble", Stadt theater, Kassel, Germany
  • Sets and Costumes: Ravel "L'Heure Espagnole", Opera Berlin, Germany
  • Mixed Media works, Nuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, Germany
  • "From Silk to Marble", Kunsterlaus Berthanien, Berlin, Germany

• 1986
  • "Don't Look Back", Danny Keller Gallery, Munich, Germany
  • "Hautnah", Windows of Ludwig Beck, Munich, Germany
  • "Autobiographs", Daniel Newburg Gallery, NYC
  • Window and Haute Couture Collection, Gallery of Wearable Art, NYC
  • Bed Installation and Art works, Area Nightclub, NYC
• 1987
  • "Light Sculptures& Objects", Sabine Schwenk Gal. Balingen, Germany
  • "The Figures Look at Art", Daniel Newburg Gallery, NYC
  • "Dress to Kill, Window Installation, Loden Frey, Munich, Germany
  • "Dial C For Scandal", Casino Munich, Germany
  • "Lust For Life", Banff Center, Canada
  • "Selected Masterpieces", Uwe Michael gallery, Breman, Germany
  • "...Starting a New Life Together", Lohringer Str. 13, Munich, Germany
• 1988
  • "The Bavarian Adventure", Frauen Museum, Bonn, Germany
• 1989
  • Selected Works from "The Bavarian Adventure, Dorsky Gallery, NYC

• 1990
  • "Platforms are back and so am I", Video Installation, Palais De Beaute, NYC
  • "Visits to the Normal World", Carol Johnssen Gallery, Munich, Germany
    
• 1991
  • "A la Plage", Renee Fotouhi, East Hampton, NY
  • "Selected works 1984 - 1990", Bodenschatz Gallery, Basel, Switzerland
  • "The Aristocrats", Carol Johnssen gallery, Munich, Germany
  • Through the Looking Glass", Rempire Gallery, NYC
  • "The Figures Look At art", Dorsky Gallery, NYC
    
• 1992
  • "Love in Ruins - The Artist and her Muse", Rempire, Germany
  • "Selected Works" 1984 - 1990", Weatherspoon Gallery, Norh Carolina
    
• 1993
  • "Retrieving My History", Event at CLub USA, NYC
  • "Return of Chivalry and Good manners", Event Club NYC
  • "Return of Innocence and Romance", Totendanz, Basel, Switzerland

• 1994
  • "Made in Germany", Kunsthalle Remchigen, Germany
  • "NO Money NO Art " D Windows/Haus Am Kleistpark, Berlin, Germany
  • "Olympia's Simple Rules", Wasserman Gallery, Cologne, Germany
  • "The Ruins and Rise of the House of Olympia", Totendanz, Basel, Switzerland
    
• 1995
  • "Colette Goes Uptown", Uptown Downtown Gallery, NYC
  • "Me Myself and I", Carol Johnssen Gallery, Munich, Germany
    
• 1996
  • "Olympia Persists Her Way Into Reality", E. Cucalon Gallery, NYC
• 1997
  • Le Salon de la Refusee, Gershwin Hotel, NYC

• 1998
  • "On the Way to Berlin", Caril Johnssen Gallery, Munich, Germany
    
• 1999('95-'99)
  • The Colette Salon, A Work in Progress, F. Starke, Berlin, Germany
• 1999
  • "Colette in the Museums", Carol Johnssen Gallery, Munich, Germany
  • "Poses", 30 Years of Photoperformance, Kim Foster Gallery, NYC
  • "Valentine", Multi-media Event, Art, Video, Music, Limelight, NYC
• 2000
  • "Colette Goes Banking", Merck Finck & Co. Berlin, Germany

• 2001
  • Carol Johnssens Gallery, Munich, Germany
• 2002
  • Carol Johnssens Gallery, Munich, Germany
  • Biennale de Montreal