>> NOW, TO COME / AUJOURD’HUI, À VENIR

>>>« THE WATCHMEN, THE LIARS, THE DREAMERS » / « LES VIGILES, LES MENTEURS, LES REVEURS »
(Concrete Erudition 3)
curated by / commissariat : Guillaume Désanges

works by Agence, Mathieu K. Abonnenc, Jean Amblard, Éric Baudelaire, Luis Camnitzer, Julius Eastman, Mario Garcia Torres, Jean-Luc Godard, Les Groupes Medvedkine, Tamar Guimaraes, Chris Moukarbel, Boris Taslitzky, Walid Raad…& Monument to Transformation (Vit Havránek, Zbynek Baladrán + Vyacheslav Akhunov, Babi Badalov, Chto Delat, Hafiz, Lise Harlev, Ivan Moudov, Boris Ondreicˇka, Anatoly Osmolovsky, Haegue Yang)

> This exhibition will take place at Le Plateau Art Center in Paris from september 16 to november 14 2010

opening / vernissage : 15 septembre 2010

> Cettte exposition aura lieu au Centre d’Art ’Le Plateau’ à Paris du 15 septembre au 15 novembre 2010

The Watchmen, the Liars, the Dreamers is the third part of the “Concrete Erudition” programme devised by curator Guillaume Désanges, who has been invited to come up with a cycle of exhibitions at Le Plateau. As part and parcel of the continuity created by “The Planet of Signs” and “Prisoners of the Sun”, this exhibition in its turn questions the way in which certain contemporary artists are renewing the relationship between art and knowledge, by showing, this time around, the work of artists who are observers— watchmen of the present and of the past. Even if their activities are, on the face of it, very diversified, they all appear to derive from a documentary principle, in the broad sense of the term. While the classic relationship between the document and reality must generally be gauged by criteria of objectivity, exhaustiveness, caution and rigour, these artists shatter these references. They thus develop alternative methods of reproduction which may use the paths of translation, reconstruction, transfer and fiction. It is not a matter of playing with and deceiving, but of affecting the other by sharing awareness and knowledge and accepting, if this is necessary, to contradict the ethical and formal rules of the scientist, the historian, and the chronicler. Be they artists, researchers, middlemen, or jurists, their forms are subject to the necessity and urgency of a message to be got across rather than any stylistic determination. Nor is it a matter of denying the effectiveness of the form ; what is involved on the contrary is the assertion of “functions” not to say missions. Echoing the idea of profound erudition, turning into hybrid forms, the exhibition thus unfolds different strategies for writing facts, which, based on practical reason and a political and militant will, sometimes end up tending towards the poetic and the lyrical. All these artists, who are extremely diverse in terms of subjects broached, share the outcome of their research, not shrinking from creating their own documents when this is necessary, and sometimes playing on ambiguities between fiction and reality, historical objectivity and creation, archive and personal collection. These artists, who are subject to obligatory means rather than results, operate in the end of the day like inventors and middlemen, contesting the stance of the author as demiurge. By using information sharing, inventories and intelligence as weapons, these watchmen propose indirect ways of criticizing specific situations, which they have elected to investigate. A moveable knowledge, to do with surfaces and connections, which contrasts the quality of the relationship between facts with blind expertise.

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SEPTEMBER / SEPTEMBRE

>>> Child’s Play
> Child’s Play fait partie de la programmation de Les Interlocuteurs, exposition qui s’inscrit dans le cadre du Printemps de Septembre

"À Toulouse, l’édition 2010 [du Printemps de Septembre], intitulée Une forme pour toute action, sera placée sous le signe de la performance, pratique qui connaît aujourd’hui une forte présence dans l’art, mais qui n’a pas encore fait l’objet d’une présentation à cette échelle. Placée sous la direction artistique de Éric Mangion, associé à Isabelle Gaudefroy, responsable des Soirées Nomades de la Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, elle sera une invitation à la présence vivante de l’art dans ses espaces habituels mais aussi dans la ville. La « Radio du bout de la nuit », qui a rencontré l’an passé un très grand succès, sera de nouveau installée dans la cour de l’École des beaux-arts."

> Pour plus d’information sur le Printemps de Septembre cliquez ici

> Pour plus d’information sur Child’s Play vous pouvez aller voir ici

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EVENTS / EVENEMENTS :

>>> A HISTORY OF PERFORMANCE IN 20 SOUNDS
>>> EXHIBITION : HaVE A LoOk ! HAve a Look !,

A project conceived by Guillaume Désanges, assisted by Hélène Meisel and David Rodriguez

To see and hear at Formcontent’s space from 25th June to 11th July, and to hear on FormContent’s website from the 25th June.

“Blind” version of “A History of Performance in 20 minutes” ( lecture that was already shown in several places), "A History of Performance in 20 Sounds" would replace speechless gestures by recorded sounds, purposely home-made and hand-crafted. Reenacting and recording the sounds of famous performances or actions : splashing, kicking, stamping, screaming, breathing, gargling, etc., simulating Chris Burden’s or Niki de Saint Phalle’s gunshots, the paper screens torn up by Saburo Murakami, etc. These recordings would give a sound memory to actions that often leave marks through visual souvenirs, notably because of their photographical remains. This noisy counterpart would generate a play blind test based on amateur reconstructions.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > HaVE A LoOk ! HAve a Look ! 7 May—11 July 2010

‘Have a Look ! Have a Look !’ screams the woman that sells fruits and vegetables in a stall right in front of FormContent’s window on Ridley Road market. Her voice attracts the passer-by becoming a physical presence to distinguish one stall from the others. Similarly HaVE A LoOk ! HAve a LOok ! will be a physical and mental gathering of sounds, words and objects tackling the dematerialization of art pieces into aural manifestations. Ranging from live events, pre-recorded contributions and curated sessions, the project explores the existing relationship between the physicality of an object and the possibility of its oral transmission. Through a weekly update of online audio streaming, FormContent will map and experiment with the parameters of an exhibition as a recorded medium. At the same time the space will be open to be used by the participants as a listening room, a compendium for the online contributions or as an impromptu collection of objects investigating further the relationship between the presence of a work and its narration. Guests working on the threshold of art, music and writing have been developing content that will feed the online streaming and could also create a visual layer to the exhibition space available at FormContent through events, performances or temporary sets. The project will manifest itself weekly from May 7th to July 11th 2010 through various interventions confusingly constructing an exhibition existing, through several constituents, in different formats and in different place.

Over 35 international contributors will enrich to the project with very diversified ideas that will be declined in a Babel of noise, voices, sounds and stories at FormContent."

"‘Have a Look ! Have a Look !’ screams the woman that sells fruits and vegetables in a stall right in front of FormContent’s window on Ridley Road market. Her voice attracts the passer-by becoming a physical presence to distinguish one stall from the others.

Similarly HaVE A LoOk ! HAve a LOok ! will be a physical and mental gathering of sounds, words and objects tackling the dematerialization of art pieces into aural manifestations. Ranging from live events, pre-recorded contributions and curated sessions, the project explores the existing relationship between the physicality of an object and the possibility of its oral transmission(...)"

> for further information you can visit FormContent’s website by clicking here

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>>> DIFFUSION « DES CHIFFRES ET DES LETTRES »
ARTE Radio project by Guillaume Désanges, assisted by Hélène Meisel Projet ARTE Radio conçu par Guillaume Désanges, assisté de Hélène Meisel
Online in March / en ligne courant mars
vous pouvez l’écouter en cliquant ici

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>>> PUBLICATION « PLANS D’EVASION », MICHEL FRANCOIS, Roma Publication 135, in collaboration with S.M.A.K Ghent / I.A.C. Villeurbanne, 2010.


Extensive monograph about the work of Michel François. With text by Guillaume Désanges and a discussion between the artist and Jean-Paul Jacquet, and an introduction by Philippe Van Cauteren and Nathalie Ergino. Design : Roger Willems. ISBN 978 90 77459 41 6.

Une monographie du travail de Michel François. Avec un texte de Guillaume Désanges, un entretien de l’artiste avec Jean-Paul Jacquet, et une introduction par Philippe Van Cauteren and Nathalie Ergino. Design : Roger Willems. ISBN 978 90 77459 41 6.

http://www.romapublications.org/main.html

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>>> PUBLICATION TROUBLE # 2, « FACTOGRAPHIES »
Editorial staff / comité de rédaction  : Boris Achour, Guillaume Désanges, Emile Renard avec Vit Havranek / With texts by / avec des textes de : Benjamin Thorel, Nataša Petrešin-Babelez, Gauthier Herrmann, entretien Nicolas Moulin / Guillaume Désanges, Eric Baudelaire, Raimundas Malasauskas, Kim West,Jean-Yves Jouannais, John Menick, Christophe Gallois, Dora García, Inke Arns, Anne Dressen, Zbynek Baladran et Tania Bruguera / Accessible for free here / distribué gratuitement ici  : Arc / Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris – Frac Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur, Marseille – La Galerie, Noisy Le Sec – gb agency, Paris– Kadist Art Foundation, Paris –Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers – MAC/VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Mudam Luxembourg.
published in March / paru un mars 2010

“Factographies” presents some artistic practices that operate a re-appropriation of contemporary or historical events, using "authentic" documents that are revealed, created, invented, manipulated, de-contextualized, often creating an ambiguous relationship to reality and fiction. Whether they be artists/researchers, forgers, experts in reconstitution, narrators of news items or real storytellers, these artists all focus on the amnesias of History and its blind points, by assuming a position close to "fact-writing" (factography), with an unscientific freedom. By doing so, they voluntarily maintain a real ambivalence on the status of the produced documents and thus make the spectator doubt their veracity. It is a way for them, most of the time, to create a new form of historical truth and to suggest new versions of facts that challenge the narrative structures proposed by historians. The catalog aims to shed light on the different aesthetic, ethical and political stakes of these positions that are at the same time fascinating and sleazy, between a poetization of the political and historical realism, between a brand new perspective and revisionism, between a demonstrative will and an ontological questioning of the truth.
In keeping with its subject, this catalogue is presented as memoirs – a narration in the first person. A narrator acts as a fictional character and represents all the authors of this Trouble issue. Each text is written in the first person as descriptions about art works mostly from memory. Structured into chapters in order to constitute one narration, expressed in different voices, the whole book will be made of this character’s narration told by multiple voices. This particular point of view impose to critical writing the viewer’s subjectivity, and may allow the fertile rough guesses of memory, of loose associations and of memory failures.

Ce second catalogue d’exposition fictive édité par Trouble s’articule autour de pratiques artistiques opérant une réappropriation d’événements historiques ou contemporains à partir de documents révélés, créés, détournés, inventés, manipulés, décontextualisés, instaurant un rapport ambigu au réel et à la fiction. Qu’il s’agisse d’artistes chercheurs, faussaires, experts de la reconstitution, narrateurs de faits-divers ou affabulateurs, ils privilégient les amnésies de l’histoire, ses points aveugles, occupant un positionnement proche de l’écriture des faits, la factographie, dans une approche non scientifique. Ce faisant, ils maintiennent une ambivalence sur le statut d| documents produits et installent parfois volontairement un doute quant à leur véracité. Il s’agit de créer une nouvelle forme de récit historique et de proposer des versions des faits qui défient les structures narratives des historiens. Au travers de cas particuliers, ce projet éditorial entend éclairer certains enjeux esthétiques, éthiques et politiques de ces positionnements à la fois spéculatifs et scabreux, entre poétisation du politique et réalisme historique, entre éclairage inédit et révisionnisme, entre volonté démonstrative et interrogation ontologique de la vérité.
Ce livre est le récit d’une exposition sous la forme d’un témoignage. Tous ces textes peuvent être considérés comme issus d’un ensemble de notes personnelles, textes archivés et propos retranscrits d’un narrateur unique. Parfois critique, curateur ou penseur, toujours spectateur, il aurait conservé tout au long de ses voyages, de ses visites et de ses rencontres, des traces : récits, textes théoriques, transcriptions de discussions, documents trouvés, croquis, soit un ensemble de points de vue disparates, éclatés dans le temps et l’|pace. Ces transcriptions intègrent dans l’écriture même la subjectivité du regard, les associations d’idées, les fertiles approximations du souvenir et les failles de la mémoire. En écho avec son sujet, Factographies est donc une exposition dans la tête d’un spectateur, reconstituée par bribes. Ainsi, ces textes ont-ils été rédigés par différents auteurs qui ont accepté d’incarner cet hypothétique narrateur unique le temps d’un texte. Cette exposition thématique se joue donc sur le terrain de l’expérience, de la mémoire parfois fuyante et du fantasme, sa temporalité étant celle d’une vie entière, et son montage étant soumis à la logique libre de la rencontre.

http://troublelarevue.free.fr/

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>>> PUBLICATION , « SIGNS AND WONDERS - THEORIE DE L’ART MODERNE / THEOREME DE L’ART MAUDIT »
published in May 2010 / paru en Mai 2010
Texte de Guillaume Désanges, Ed. du MAC/VAL, coll. "Chroniques muséales", n° 3, 80 pages, 3 euros.

The « Chroniques muséales » collection gives the MAC/VAL companions the opportunity to share their opinions and thoughts. In this third publication, Guillaume Désanges, critical companion of the MAC/VAL for the year 2009, presents the text of his lecture « Signs and Wonders ». The lecture follows a scenario that proposes to bring to light on how certain elementary geometric patterns related to rational and mathematical models have fed into twentieth century avant-gardes and in modernity in general. From Marcel Duchamp and Kasimir Malevitch to Sol LeWitt, Donald Judd, Bruce Nauman or Dan Graham, the lecture consists of investigating, in a spirit of adventure, how the observation of repetitive signs and of their archaic symbolism might tell us a secret history of modernity, a hidden language, a code or a mystical tradition, with its initiates, filiations, occult rituals and heresies. The lecture is entirely illustrated through a shadow play, realised on stage without virtuosity, yet with a desire to demonstrate and work with shapes, light and darkness. An opportunity to measure the illusionist and magical potential of practices that we sometimes too easily pigeon-hole in the category of rationalism. What you see is not always what you see.

La collection « Chroniques muséales » permet de partager les opinions et les pensées de compagnons qui ont marqué le MAC/VAL de leur passage. Dans ce troisième opus, Guillaume Désanges, compagnon critique du MAC/VAL en 2009, présente le texte de sa conférence « Signs and Wonders ». La conférence suit un scénario proposant d’éclairer la manière dont certains motifs géométriques élémentaires issus de modélisations mathématiques et rationalistes ont nourri les avant-gardes du vingtième siècle et la modernité en général. De Marcel Duchamp et Kasimir Malevitch à Sol LeWitt, Donald Judd, Bruce Nauman ou Dan Graham, il s’agit d’enquêter, avec un esprit aventurier, comment l’observation de signes récurrents et de leur symbolisme archaïque peut nous raconter une histoire secrète de la modernité, un langage caché, un code, une mystique particulière, avec ses initiés, ses filiations, ses rituels occultes et ses hérésies. La conférence est entièrement illustrée par des ombres chinoises, réalisée sur scène sans virtuosité mais avec une volonté démonstrative de travailler le contour essentiel des formes, la lumière et l’obscurité. Une occasion de mesurer le potentiel illusionniste et magique de pratiques que l’on range parfois trop facilement du côté du rationalisme. What you see is not always what you see.