Paris-born, New York-based conceptual artist Cyril Duval, often operating under the moniker Item Idem, works at the intersection of conceptual art, product design, branding and retail. He has collaborated with an impressive roster of edgy names, from Bernhard Willhelm to Colette and, recently in Berlin, for filmmaker and reluctant pornographer Bruce LaBruce, on the art direction for the opera Pierrot Lunaire. The musical melodrama is based on the arrangements Schönberg composed to poems by Albert Giraud about a century ago. LaBruce transforms the Commedia dell’Arte figure of the moonstruck weirdo, Pierrot, into a contemporary gender-bending tragedy à la Boys Don’t Cry. “The stage design is a strong reference to German expressionism and especially Kurt Schwitters’ Merzbau, only more druggy,” explains Duval. “I call it Merzbau on steroids.” Duval believes that the show could have only materialized in Berlin: “You never get public funding for an experimental piece like that in New York. Especially not with a castration scene…You’ve got to love Berlin for that.”
While here, Duval stayed at the new Bless apartment, which he also had a hand in designing. “I ended up co-designing the shop and having the best place to live. There’s this table where you press a button and it rotates to become a bed.” He’ll be back very soon for a window project at the Galleries Lafayette during Gallery Weekend. “Berlin has been very good for me,” he says. We can’t get enough.
Print