iris.time unlimited (1962-1975)

Iris Clert: few gallery owners' names attract as much attention as this one. For generations of art lovers, she remains the flamboyant icon of Parisian artistic effervescence of the post-war period. Active in the world of From the 1950s to the early 1980s, it welcomed visitors to its galleries successive, Left Bank then Right Bank, legendary exhibitions such as The Yves Klein's Vide in 1958 and Arman's Le Plein in 1960, as well as some of the most important artists of the 20th century such as Pol Bury, Gaston Chaissac, Bill Copley, Lucio Fontana, Leon Golub, Raymond Hains, Ad Reinhardt, Takis and Jean Tinguely. If this list of artists, not exhaustive, obviously gives him a prominent place in the history of contemporary art, Iris Clert was also – and This is one of her great contributions – the inventor of exhibition formats and communication, as evidenced by its iris.time unlimited review. Designed to renew her way of communicating as she moves to the Right Bank In the early 1960s, Iris Clert published a leaflet for thirteen years four pages, governed by a double editorial line: on one side, announce and promote the gallery's exhibitions and, more generally, provide information on the world of contemporary art and its current events; on the other hand, to offer a space for creation conducive to comic, absurd and polemical interventions. The The first issue appeared on October 6, 1962, the last issue in April 1975. The longevity of the journal is noteworthy in an environment where experiences of this type are generally ephemeral. Each issue has characteristics common, both in terms of content and layout. Taking up the principle from the front pages of France-Soir, those of iris.time unlimited present the title of newspaper framed by two ears, the portrait of the gallery owner on the left and that of the artist of the exhibition announced on the right, a platform or headline and a large format photograph of the work, under a banner of legal information. The The print run varies between 4,000 and 6,000 copies, while the list of subscribers contains nearly 450 names. The frequency of publication is variable, depending on the rhythm of Iris Clert's exhibitions and stays abroad. The publication welcomes more or less regular collaborators, more or less sections less recurrent. Among these, chronicles on artistic life Parisian, press reviews, games, advertisements, presentations of reviews, "Iris's Point of View", mood pieces, "Gossip of the gallery”, crazy classified ads and, of course, a horoscope created by the clairvoyant of Iris Clert. "My little diary, started as a joke, will become a work of art in itself. It is a symbiosis of mystification and demystification where humor has all its rights", summarizes Iris Clert in her memories. Much more than a curiosity of bibliophiles, iris.time unlimited remains today a reference for many publishers and gallery owners. Collected by American university libraries and European specialized art history and documentation centers museums around the world, iris.time unlimited embodies the style that Iris Clert has printed in the art world, a mixture of sociability, humor, eccentricity and creativity. Thanks to this new facsimile printing, paper and format identical to the original, this editorial UFO is now within reach of all. The complete reproduction of the 46 numbers is accompanied by a booklet containing a text by the critic and art historian Clément Dirié, author of the noted work Iris Clert. The Ambiguous Star of the Avant-Garde (2021), by photographs as well as biographies of the contributors and an index of subscribers. Its publication celebrates to the day the sixtieth anniversary of the publication of the first issue of iris.time unlimited.