“Locataire Mobilier” (Furniture Tenant) , 1993 (selection).

One of Gilles Barbier’s earliest obsessions is the leitmotif notion of Inhabiting. Or at least, the young artist seems to be magnetized by this idea of projecting himself, or even colonizing, via architecture, the vacant spaces he spots in art, but also in his domestic environment. He suggests moving into a baby chair, a table, a bed… His approach already seems to point to a very Philip K. Dickian “squatter” problem: owner or tenant? These places he dreams of taking over, whether in art or in a more trivial everyday life, are he an owner or just a tenant, just passing through? And his ideas, his memories, his history, his identity, do they belong to him, or does he inhabit them in passing? His questions about style, art and the ownership of discourse soon follow the same path.

Only a few photographs remain from this period, as almost all of these works have been destroyed.