Colette, ‘Living Environment’ (1972-83)
With the birth of her new persona, Colette’s studio – formerly Laboratoire Lumière – has also been renamed “Victory of the People”. It’s first mission, according to a dedicated Kickstarter, is to help save and conserve one of the artist’s early inner sculptures: “Living Environment” (1972-83). Over a decade, the baroque installation enveloped her Lower Manhattan loft, constantly evolving with the addition of new paintings, light boxes, mirrors, and other artefacts. Inhabiting it, she herself became a “living sculpture”.
For Colette, it’s important to preserve “Living Environment” because it marks “the beginning of an artist’s career”. After plans for it to be acquired by Stockholm’s Museum of Modern Art – led by the famed art dealer and gallerist Leo Castelli – fell through in 1982, the work has been in storage, where it’s “been through hell”.