Le musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris/ ARC au Couvent des Cordeliers
Part 2/2: Derriere l'orizon
Part 1/2 Dessins sans papier
Part 2/2 Derriere l'orizon
Curator: Laurence Bosse, Anne Dressen, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Angeline Scherf
I still believe in miracles* presents a new generation of artists selected
after intense research of local and the international scene. Presented in
two parts (Dessins sans papier 7 April - 7 May / I still believe in still
19 May - 19 June 2005 Derriere l'orizon), the exhibition takes over the space designed by
Rirkrit Tiravanija for his recent retrospective: a transposition of the
ARC, from the Musee d'Art Moderne to the Couvent des Cordeliers.
The first part - Dessins sans papier - highlights the major presence of
drawing practices today. Far from being restricted to the studio, drawing
is also very much present in public places and in cinemas, most notably in
the form of walldrawings and animation films. Hence the rules adopted for
this exhibition: drawings made directly on the walls or projected onto
them.
Either as ephemera in the case of the walldrawings or as multiples in the
case of animations, these works without paper resist the artistic awe
syndrome and generate a kind of interactivity with the viewer.
Walldrawing approaches the wall as collective space. Here we have variants
on a site-specific approach going back to such early or basic forms of
drawing as cave art and graffiti.
Close to caricature, the works of Dan Perjovschi draw directly on today's
reality, while those of Donald Urquhart are inspired from underground and
nocturn life. Constantin Luser opts for poetic dual-line projections with
an industrial touch to them. Other artists play with the architecture of
the venue, among them Robin Rhode who involves the public in drawn
performances. Petra Mrzyk and Jean-FranCois Moriceau simulate, on the
wall, a gallery of grimacing portraits. Collaborative work is another
current trend, as in the spontaneously explosive fresco of Maroussia
Rebecq and her guests. A luminous counterpoint is provided by the delicate
dreamlike drawings by Vidya Gastaldon. Santiago Cucullu offers a coloured
and 'mythological' panorama and Sammy Stein, after creating his exuberant
creatures, transfers them onto stickers that can infiltrate any place.
Availing itself of the latest developments in computer technology,
animation is now moving into new spaces as part of a cultural current -
videogames, mangas - that has radically changed our relationship to the
drawn moving image. The visual artists chosen for this exhibition bring a
free hand to the usual rules and creative approaches, offering brief,
pseudo-naive narrative formats characterised by experimentation with
hybrid techniques.
Some of the narrative works come in the form of installations taking a
critical look at contemporary society: Paul Chan's paradise veers into the
apocalyptic, while Kota Ezawa turns a TV program virtual by stylising it
with pop flat tints. The more minimalist Mario Garcia Torres animates a
conceptual statement.
The diversity of the artists chosen allows for a real mix of stylistic
sequences: Benoit Broisat's tracking-shot through the memory of a city;
the psychedelic, algorithm-rich world of Ryoko Aoki and Zon Ito; Vidya
Gastaldon's electromagnetic waves; and Camille Henrot's ghostly filmed
graffiti. Others, like Roberto Cuoghi, tweak the basic aesthetic of the
cartoon and its main protagonists, while Lionel Sabatte does the same for
computer science with his computer-generated clips and Sammy Stein reworks
the Gameboy as the support for an ancestral fable. Working in black and
white, Ana Maria Millan & Andres Sandoval draw on B-movies, and Virginie
Barre et Stephane Sautour reduce horror movies to a few key elements of
mise en scene.
Also intriguing are the correspondences that arise when walldrawings and
animations are confronted in a same place: the drawings line up along the
walls, the films follow each other in a loop. And the result is an energy
that challenges the often narrow definitions of drawing and its potential
for experiment.
* The title is taken from a work by Douglas Gordon (2005) included in this
exhibition.
ARC (Musee d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris)
Couvent des Cordeliers
15 rue de l’École de Médecine, 75006 Paris