Sylvie Fleury’s multimedia practice explores the interplay between fashion and art, scrutinizing the politics of consumerism and fetishism. This interrogation is as provocative—radically questioning the paradigms of desire and art history—as it is playful. Continuing their collaboration of over three decades, Sprüth Magers is pleased to present a solo exhibition featuring a selection of Fleury’s neon works alongside her installation She-Devils on Wheels Headquarters (2000).
 
The neons transform commercial language—product names like “Égoïste,” advertising mantras like “Faster! Bigger! Better!”—into meditations on consumption. By isolating these familiar slogans, Fleury exposes the mechanisms through which desire, luxury and identity are constructed and sold in contemporary society. The choice of neon, a quintessential advertising medium, fuses art with commerce and text with sculpture.
 
She-Devils on Wheels Headquarters references both a 1968 film about an all-female motorcycle gang called The Man-Eaters and Fleury’s own women-only motoring club, founded in the 1990s after she was refused membership to a car-racing club. The installation includes a red mural with the blocky lettering spelling “SHE-DEVILS ON WHEELS,” a large-scale neon reading “HOT HEELS,” blown-up magazine covers and club merchandise—badges, caps, stickers and T-shirts. The work draws sharp parallels between the paraphernalia of femininity and the tools of motorsport culture, offering an ironic critique of gendered rituals and obsessions.

Premiering concurrently, Fleury’s Performa Biennial 2025 commission will combine sculpture, movement and sound in a series of tableaux vivants.

About Sylvie Fleury