Société Réaliste is an artists' cooperative founded in 2004 by Ferenc Gróf (1972) and Jean-Baptiste Naudy (1982). Central to their activities is the exploration, subversion and deconstruction of the specific devices of visual communication that have been developed and employed by institutions, governments and rulers, i.e., the representatives of power – in the fields of religion, politics, culture, art and finance – so as to position themselves. By exploring the representative and aesthetic roles of these agencies – including signs, logos, maps, symbols, typefaces, landmarks, emblems, statues or even buildings – in complex contexts of much broader time and space, the artists place them in a new light in the form of a “political cabinet of curiosities”, a critical, narrative implementation of design.
Through its title, empire, state, building primarily evokes the famous New York skyscraper, the “building/temple/work of art” that, ever since its completion in 1931, has been the mythological emblem of the United States, as much as a source of artistic inspiration – from the 1933 movie, King Kong, to Andy Warhol's 1964 silent film, Empire. At the same time, the use of punctuation, i.e., the commas inserted in the title, generates a new perspective of meaning, highlighting the origin and functioning of power symbols, from empire through state to construction. How do buildings, public sculptures and monuments express and perpetuate ideology? How do public spaces visualise the relation between the modern state and culture? Such questions are raised by Société Réaliste in its critical analysis of the connections between architecture and history, buildings and political power.