Silvie Fleury became known at the end of the nineties with works which transferred feminine luxury goods into ready-mades in an art context. She staged herself as a “fashion victim” and enthusiastic consumer within the capitalist system. Nevertheless, her lipstick rockets, her cuddly, artificial fur objects or chrome-plated bronze sculptures of transmuted cult objects can be understood as ironic infiltrations of this economic model.

In 1999, she appropriated the last male bastion in sport, Formula 1 racing, in an examination of the relationship between sexes. She took the racing costume of world champion Mika Häkkinen as the model for her design of the Formula One Dress, and had herself captured for posterity in a chic photo together with the sport idol. The sculpture W6 belongs in this area of metaphorical transmutations of maids, men and motors. The Formula 1 tyre – a chrome-plated bronze cast – was made at the same time as castings of motors for a prior generation of sports cars. It looks almost dreamily old-fashioned, but nevertheless evokes the knowledge that the last circuit in the race for equality has still not been run.

Brigitte Huck, 2005 (translation: Tim Sharp)