Olivier Millagou

There is undeniably something that has to do with lifestyle in the art of Olivier Millagou, a straightforward attitude, like a relation to the California surfing world. His work is based on initially American counter-cultures, sur- fing and skate boarding, Marvel Comics, rock and independent films. He has a precise knowledge of all this. The proliferation of these cultural elements tallies with a constant variety of medium: disk, installation, object, environ- ment, wall drawing with drawing pins, Tippex, painting on postcards... The artist multiplies the fields of expression and produces an all-encompassing and seductive oeuvre. Behind this immediate fascination with images, Olivier Millagou also subtly presents the relations of powers and domination at stake in certain “encounters” of civilizations. And in these lost paradises, every- thing thus becomes dark, as dark as an old Motorhead album. Olivier Millagou conceives his latest exhibition Litmus out of the clutter that modern life exerts on the individual. Litmus is the story of our contemporary condition of overflowing, generalized and systematic consumerism, and its impact on nature. The artist reverses this narrative by using found material, and thus inverts its scheme through creation. An exhibition that attempts to be made with little, with what is available, with what has no other alternative than to end up incinerated, among other waste. Out of humility, Olivier sublimes waste into poetry. The paintings and sculptures of the show appear to be extracted from an illustration book: Birds, pets, flowers, butterflies and flies populate a world of flowery landscapes where man, when he appears, is reduced to the extremities of his body, a foot, a hand. Behind this illusory innocence, an underlying intention gives Olivier Millagou's work a much broader and important meaning. ...

Founded in 2010 by Guillaume Sultana, Sultana collaborates with emerging international artists. The gallery space operates as a site for experimentation and expression, often bringing together well-established and lesser known artists through a playful, yet politically-engaged curatorial program that highlights practices concerned with questions of identity and their social ramifications. By giving space to curators and writers, in addition to artists, the gallery is committed to rethinking the traditional modes of exhibition-making and collaboration within the art world. In 2021, Sultana opened Sultana Summer Set Arles to convene artists, collectors, curators, and friends close to the gallery in a domestic and intimate space in the heart of the city. This space was conceived as a residency and site of exchange, to host projects angled toward creative freedom, reflection, and flânerie that eschews a regular programming schedule, and is organized instead according to the whims and desires of our community. These two spaces exemplify the spirit of Sultana: the desire to provide artists with an independent platform for expression via site-specific projects and curatorial propositions. ...