Collection: Information Fiction Publicité

Information Fiction Publicité (IFP) was a French artist collective founded in 1984 by Jean-Louis Boissier, Ghislain Mollet-Viéville, and others working at the intersection of art, media theory, and communication systems. A key associated figure was Philippe Thomas, whose practice — centred on the transfer of authorship, the fabrication of identity, and the use of advertising formats as artistic propositions — ran in close parallel with IFP’s concerns. Thomas’s agency readymades belong to everyone® (founded 1987) extended these ideas into a sustained institutional and commercial fiction, in which collectors became the named authors of works they acquired.

Operating in Paris throughout the 1980s, IFP produced exhibitions, publications, and events that examined the mechanisms of information, advertising, and public language — treating publicity and media not as neutral channels but as ideological structures to be analysed and subverted. The collective engaged with questions of how images, texts, and systems of distribution shape meaning and desire, and appeared in galleries, art centres, and publications across France and internationally.

The New Rare holds printed matter and exhibition ephemera related to Information Fiction Publicité and its associated figures, including invitation cards and documents from their exhibitions and projects.