a tall black sign in the middle of a room
Premium Maître Christophe LUCIEN

32 - LA DACTYLO (1991)
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Estimate €1,500 - €1,600
Sale commission
Description
LA DACTYLO (1991) Measure your happiness Mixed media, stencil on metal. One-off piece. Height: 200 cm; Width: 2 cm. La Dactylo, an urban poet and language artist, transforms public and digital spaces into a vast arena for artistic expression. Her aphorisms, stencilled onto walls or shared online, are acts of poetic resistance aimed at raising awareness and restoring a measure of power to each individual within the urban landscape. The aphorism is the art of brevity. A stylistic uppercut. It strikes, challenges, makes you smile, seeps into your mind, sows doubt, and sparks reflection or awareness. La Dactylo travels the length and breadth of France in her van on what she calls her ‘Dactylotours’, scattering her words across towns and cities. But her work extends beyond the streets: she also exhibits in galleries and at festivals and group exhibitions. In particular, she has taken part in Art Paris and held a solo exhibition in a gallery at the Centre Georges Pompidou. Her collection, *Démo d’esprit* (Éditions Verticales, Gallimard), brings together her iconic aphorisms. ‘Mesurer votre bonheur’ subverts the primary function of the toise, a tool designed to measure the human body. Through her interpretation, La Dactylo questions our need to evaluate, compare and quantify everything. Can happiness really be measured? Is there a unit capable of quantifying it? By erecting a measuring rod whose scale has been replaced by the words ‘Measure your happiness’, the artist confronts the visitor with a paradox: the desire to measure something that, by its very nature, defies measurement. The work oscillates between humour and philosophy. It transforms a precision tool into an instrument of doubt, questioning our contemporary obsession with measurement and evaluation, whilst reminding us that some things have neither unit, nor scale, nor price
See original version (French)
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About the sale Paris, My Love, 17th edition
Auction location
Auction time 09/21/2026 at 1:30 PM
Pictures modified on 07/31/2026 at 7:12 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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