A large poster from Martin Margiela's debut as a contemporary artist at the Lafayette Anticipations solo exhibition. The deodorant, with its incredibly solid, sculptural texture, is beautiful. The back has the label blacked out, and despite being a poster, it has no prominent typography or logo, giving it an almost painterly appearance. Or rather, I don't think this texture could be achieved in a painting. The lack of commercial information in a promotional medium meant to be copied and spread is perhaps very Margiela-esque. (In fact, when this poster was put up on the streets and in the metro of Paris, it seems that it was often not recognized as an exhibition of contemporary art.) There are also posters for retrospective exhibitions and Hermes exhibitions, but this one elevates the space as a single work of art. I'm starting to hesitate about listing it as I write this, so there's a chance I might cancel the listing suddenly. A0 size is rare, as they are hardly ever produced. The following is the explanatory text (original French): Martin Margiela is interested in the objects that surround us and the stories they reveal about us. The image of a giant deodorant welcoming visitors in the courtyard establishes this object as the symbol of the exhibition. This deodorant, a very new cosmetic in human history, intervenes in the transformation of the body, stopping the passage of time by concealing sweat and replacing the odors naturally produced by the body. In this way, deodorant is one of the signs of our time's obsession with hygiene, and a sign of the industrialization of the treatment of the body, proving our desire to control all forms of "threatening" metamorphosis. Indeed, deodorant makes it possible to mitigate the effects of stress, fear, or effort, and to make the body "desirable" according to the standards of a certain contemporary culture.