Artist Núria Güell presents Arte Político Degenerado. Conexión Epstein-Lang at the Lyon Biennale, a project that investigates the relationships between the art market, financial structures and cultural power through information related to Jeffrey Epstein, Jack Lang and Caroline Lang.
Güell transforms the Biennale space into an actual art fair booth and creates Prytanee LLC Gallery, a name inspired by a company linked to the Epstein-Lang case. The space offers a single painting by young French artist Renaud Suanez, based on the well-known photograph of Jack Lang alongside Jeffrey Epstein, with the Louvre as a backdrop.
The project deliberately reproduces some of the mechanisms of the art market: a gallery, a work for sale, an intermediary and a discourse around its value, as well as prestige and speculation, questioning the extent to which these factors determine the value of a work beyond its artistic qualities.
Through this corporate fiction, Güell raises questions about the relationship between money, prestige, speculation, philanthropy and cultural institutions, and about how these factors can influence the construction of artistic value.
The project is supported by Catapulta, Fundació Úniques, Institut Ramon Llull and Acción Cultural Española (AC/E).
Through this intervention, Güell uses the very structure of the Biennale as artistic material and makes the visitor part of an investigation into the connections between art, economic power and cultural legitimisation.
