Zevs at Ora Ïto's Mamo in Marseille, a solo exhibition called "Oïkos Logos", from 21 June to 19 sept. 2021, at the Cité Radieuse, Marseille

Deployed on the roof of La Cité Radieuse, this solo show brings together three series of paintings - Jet Painting, Septic Paintings and Evolution Series - and three sculptures - Keep the best till last, Labitation and Manpower.

From the Greek root Oïkos (house) and Logos (science, knowledge), the exhibition explores the question of ecology and reflects on the relationships between humans, their activities and their environment. In La Cité radieuse, the artist warns of the drift of humanity playing with fire.

Zevs, aka Aguirre Schwarz, is an artist living in Paris and Berlin. His work, satirical and engaged in the subject, invites introspection on our modes of consumption and questions the failings of a consumerist society in a cynical and offbeat way.

Zevs reaffirms his status as an artist with a message by revealing the fragility of the world: atmospheric pollution, polluted water and melting ice, all testify to an environment degraded by human hyperactivity.

The first series Jet Painting presents a diptych, like an invitation at the beginning of the exhibition, a promise of being welcomed in a safe and comfortable place for humans.

The exhibition then presents the Septic Paintings series, a composition based on the research by Richard Heede, who argues that a third of the greenhouse gas emissions generated since 1965 come from the 20 oil giants.

The third series, entitled Evolution, presents eight paintings inspired by David Hockney’s A Bigger Splash from 1967 and Claude Monet’s Water Lilies. Through eight representations of a single Californian villa, the artist denounces a consumerist economy powered by fossil fuels and invites us to reflect on the role of humankind in the over-exploitation of the planet’s resources.

In the centre of the space, the Manpower sculpture is made after the Modulor, using three measurements that have a ratio equal to the golden ratio. Zevs speaks to us here of excess, that of man believing himself to be all powerful, but proving to be of little consequence.

The highlight of this exhibition is Zevs’ own lightning rod sculpture Labitation in copper, bronze and crystal. A Promethean instrument allowing man to take lightning from the heavens, this erectile sculpture symbolically drives electricity in Le Corbusier’s work.