Philippe Thomas / readymades belong to everyone® Biennale de São Paulo, Le Pavillon Français: Invitation, CNAP, Paris, 1990, with the French Section Catalogue, 1989

A work by Philippe Thomas, entered at the 20th São Paulo Biennial under other names. Through his agency, readymades belong to everyone®, the collector who acquired a work signed it and became its author. The French section of 1989, curated by Catherine Millet, listed three exhibitors: Alain Jacquet, Antonio Semeraro, and Jay Chiat / Édouard Merino. Thomas is not among them.

The catalogue gives the agency's entry, Insights, under Édouard Merino's name: a Cibachrome triptych and a photograph of a sign reading philippe thomas, reflected upside down in a polished surface. Millet's essay follows the reflection back to its name and identifies Thomas as director of the agency. The section closes with the agency's history from 1981. Its last entry records Chiat and Merino presenting Insights at the Biennial and at Curt Marcus Gallery, New York.

The invitation brings the pavilion back to Paris. The private view was on Tuesday 27 March 1990, at the CNAP, 11 rue Berryer, and the show ran until 7 May. The card is issued in the names of Jack Lang, Minister of Culture, and Thierry de Beaucé, Secretary of State for International Cultural Relations, and lists the three entries again. A ministry invites the public to a work by an artist it does not name.

Both pieces carry the same image, three discs in blue, gold and red: across the catalogue cover, and stacked down the folded card. The card is credited to the Fondation Nationale des Arts Graphiques et Plastiques.