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For Par Avion, Berlin based artist duo Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro have acquired a small fighter plane, from a scrap metal merchant in their native Australia. The artists then deconstructed the entire body by cutting it into small pieces, and packing these into postage boxes. The boxes were then sent onward to Frey Norris by air freight.
The final installation is comprised of the postage boxes assembled in the configuration of the original plane, revealing the components within each box.
Par Avion, or Airmail, is French and the phrase often appears on a sticker or label indicating a letter should be sent by air. The artists think that it is apt that such postal etiquette should be placed upon a vehicle of destruction; something of a greater force will be driving it through the air to its destination in San Francisco.
The wreckage of the plane that no longer has the capability of flying will be given new means of movement. The speed, maneuverability and size were once the distinguishing features of the aircraft. But these have now been stripped away, and the object of these qualities arranged as isolated components. The small boxes that contain them might perhaps bring some order out of disorder, or lay to rest some of the intrinsic purposes of the original airborne fighting machine.
A number of other small objects, dealing with similar themes will appear in an adjacent gallery to the Par Avion project.
Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro are internationally recognized collaborative artists based primarily out of Berlin, though their native Sydney has once again asserted its gravity on them. Most projects involve the disassembly and reinvention of meaning laden objects, sometimes provided by the local populace, often at an enormous scale (such as the size of a building). These have appeared throughout Europe, Asia and Australia, including at the most recent Venice Biennial. Par Avion is the pair's first exhibition in the United States.
