Claude Closky

Good Books is pleased to present Pif Paf, a presentation by Claude Closky & guests.

As part of his invitation at Good Books, Claude Closky has created a mobile composed of letters, visible from the street. Forming a shifting series of onomatopoeias; Fpi Fpa, Pfi Paf, Pif Pfa… the work is subject to constant reformulation and operates like a playful oracle, mocking the times to come. Giving its title to the exhibition, Pif Paf points to a contemporary condition of language marked by polarization, simplification, and the increasing brutality of political and media discourse.

In keeping with the artist’s longstanding editorial practice, the bookshop brings together nearly one hundred editions produced since the early 1990s. In parallel, drawing on his role as a professor at the Beaux-Arts de Paris since 2005, Closky has invited thirty-four artists who have passed through his atelier to present their editorial works for the occasion.

Featuring aalliicceelleessccaannnnee & ssoonniiaaddeerrzzyyppoollsskkii, Agathe Benoît, Alexis Chrun, Antonia Carrara, Arthur Tiar, Baptiste Rabichon, Christophe Lemaitre, Clarisse Pillard, Clément Bleu-Pays, Elsa Michaud, Elsa Werth, Gabriel Gauthier, Gabriel Peyre, Gaëlle Jaunay, Gwendal Coulon, Adrien Gerenton, Hatice Pinarbasi, Helene Garcia, Ivan Argote, Jean-Baptiste Lenglet, Louise Siffert, Lucas Henao Serna, Lucie Planty, Marie Glaize, Mathilde Ganancia, Mazaccio & Drowilal, Mia Trabalon, Muriel Leray, Paul Bardet, Pierre Tectin, Shona Stark, Tania Gheerbrant, Thelma Cappello, Yuan Yue.

Claude Closky has no formal training as a visual artist. He entered the Ecole National Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (ENSAD) in 1982 but quit at the end of the first year to co-found The Ripoulin Brothers, a street artist collective. In 1988 he left the group to develop his independent work, using voluntarily poor means such as drawing and printed matter.

He has participated in the Biennials of Lyon (1995), Sydney (1996), Taipei (2000), València (2001), Sharjah (2005), Venice (2017), Mardin (2024).In 2000, the Mudam (Luxembourg) commissioned him to conceive and manage its website, for which he created a magazine and a gallery of immaterial artworks.The site was launched at the Luxembourg Pavilion in the 2001 Venice Biennale. Since 2005 he has taught at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris. In October 2005 he was the recipient of the Prix Marcel Duchamp. In 2012 he curated ‘This & There,’ an exhibition to celebrate the tenth year of the ‘Pavilion, Palais de Tokyo Laboratory for Creation’ (Paris) which presented the work of 74 artists in 74 different spaces. In 2020, he curated ‘X’ at the Frac Pays de la Loire and in 2023 ‘Offset’ at the Centre des livres d'artistes (cdla).

Recently Claude Closky’s work has been shown in Shanghai at the Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum (2025-26), in Berlin at the Akademie der Künste (2025), in Wien at the Dom Museum (2025), in Marseille at the Centre International de Poésie (2025), in Matera at the Fondazione Southeritage per l’arte contemporanea, 2025, in Paris at the Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration, 2024, in Leeds at the Beckett University (2024), in Bogotá at the Museo de Arte Moderno (2023).