BAGS IN A WORLD OF CONSUMPTION
Frederic Allard was born on May 5th, 1968, under the golden glitter of the French Riviera. At this time, France was at its full rebellion. As an only child of an atypical couple, the father is a renowned architect, and the mother is both exuberant and beautiful. Exposed early on to two aunts, a grandmother, and two older sisters from his father’s first marriage, Fred revels in a very feminine environment, marking his childhood with feminine nudity and allure. His father, omnipresent by his charisma but absent by his passion for humanitarian action and women, will spend his life looking for his feminine ideal by multiplying the conquests. He will love them all – from the woman mother to the rebel woman, including the mischievous (naughty) woman, the provocative woman – without ever finding her, nor even leaving her.
At a young age, Fredric quickly became enthralled with photography. Gifted with artistic sensibility and a conning eye, the images he captured in his photos always showed sincerity. When his father died, he began photographing the walls of big European capitals. Walls, architectural imprints, or indelible imprints of a past that seem to have marked him? As a result, Fred, equipped with headphones blaring 80’s music, prints these images to a larger-than-life scale. He is in his ideal world, his world, far from ours. He embeds his paintings with his past and present feelings, with what he is, himself, and his emotion. Inspired by Basquiat and Pop art peri iod, lively colors become his pallet and graphic words his engine. From this, his first series was born.
Within this time period, Fred marries and very quickly embarks on a creative whirlwind inspired by his wife’s fashion website featuring avant-garde models. His second series is born. He tags these models’ images, transforms them, tears them, adds HIS words, and collages them. This becomes his interpretation of the images, his inspirations, his feelings, and his disguised times, but always maintaining a modern and exuberant quality. …” Bas Rock, Very Chic” arose from this series.
His third series was dedicated to the ONE woman who could encompass and embody solely with her very image, that of a child, rebel, sensual and intelligent woman. His passion for beauty in fashion drove him to select as a muse the epitome and definition of all these women in the iconic Kate Moss. Kate, this one woman, has it all. He chooses her image to be the first on exhibit.
Frederic’s latest sculptures, labeled ‘The BAGS’ are the reflection of his personal and professional life, a Fashion Lab, a Brand Lab, a perfect Trend Lab, a picture, his feelings and views of this mass consumption society where industrial products and worldwide brands dictate our taste, our needs, our behavior, our very identity.
This resin, shiny, transparent ice cubes freeze, highlight, and magnify this moment when luxury meets mass, when the brand guides the object when shopping becomes a need, a must, a status symbol; these sculptures then themselves become this object of attraction, this object of envy, this object of yours. The sculpture usually includes a luxury bag, symbolizing consumption, accumulation, and compression. The beauty is that it can consist of industrial products, luxury items, and even the personal objects of the collector himself as a moment of his own life, his feelings, and his reflection on society, others, or himself. The BAG then allows the magic moment of dialogue between the artist and the collector, the introspection, the questioning, this instant of sharing, the decision, irreversible. The BAGS use fashion icons, brands, and trendy objects; they freeze this wild world of consumption in a steady 3D, fully transparent picture of our society, transforming from a shopping bag to a timeless reflection, a testimony, a timeless piece of Art.