Search results for ""Actes Sud""

PascALEjandro is an artistic collective created by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Pascale Montandon-Jodorowsky. Their work has been exhibited around the world. PascALEjandro also provided the colour for the two recent Alejandro Jodorowsky movies, The Dance of Reality and Endless Poetry.

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In electrical and electronic systems, a ground noise is a sound interference, a stray noise considered as disturbance. Like a flying insect trapped in a lamp, it is a continuous rustle, a vibration that seeks to escape. Its presence is considered annoying, therefore one usually seeks to get rid of it. Insects and arthropods trigger atavistic reactions in us. Even dead and pinned under glass, a spider will be able to frighten, even for a moment, an adult human being. Admittedly, we have somehow tamed our fears towards them, through admiration (“the incredible work of ants”, “the beauty of butterflies”) or recognition (“the bees, our so useful nurturers”), but this teeming fauna remains nonetheless mysterious, obscure, even unsettling. This work is extended by a conversation between Céline Clanet and eco-acoustician Jérôme Sueur, a specialist of the “melody of insects”.

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Art faber is an umbrella term for works of art – whether pictorial, literary, photographic, musical or cinematographic – whose main or secondary themes are work, business and the world of economics. The word faber is rooted in the foundations of the economy. It is the Latin word for “smith” and the etymological root of Romance language of “making” and “manufacturing”, as well as the essence of Homo faber. Homo faber or “man the maker” is the toolmaker, the manufacturer of machines and consumer products, the main protagonist of secondary industries, but also of the tertiary, service sector. Homo faber is also a producer of life, especially in terms of cultivation and animal husbandry – the farmer, the breeder, the tamer, the transformer, adapting the natural world to our needs: harnessing animals’ strength for work, creating consumer products, such as milk and meat; and processing wool and hide for artisanal ends. For several decades now, however, this manufacture of life forms has raised several ethical and moral questions about animal well-being, food strategies, sustainable development, ecology, short-and-long term disaster management, and intensive breeding and its impact on the environment and consumers. This first issue of the Cahiers de l’Art faber tackles the field of photography through the “Bestiaux” portrait series begun by the artist Yann Arthus-Bertrand thirty years ago. In the series, the artist looks at the privileged relationship between breeder and livestock, inviting us to reflect upon the economic vocation of their animals, and on the system in which animals are produced, used and consumed. As wells as a previously unpublished interview with the photographer by Catherine Briat, the issue features articles from the historian Éric Baratay on domestication, the economist Jean-Marc Dupuy on the history of animal production in France, and the legal expert Jean-Pierre Marguénaud on the issue of animal rights, as well as a presentation of the results of a Havas-BETC survey into the contemporary relationship between humans and animals by Olivier Vigneaux, the chair of BETC advertising agency’s Digital Studio. With this first Cahier, the Art Faber collective inaugurates a series of articles exploring major societal themes today in an attempt to create a cross-fertilization of two disciplines that are oft considered unrelated: contemporary art and economics, to encourage debate, expand scope for fresh interpretations, and encourage dialogue between the two fields.

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“If I had to sum up Niele Toroni in one word, without hesitation that word would be ‘loyalty’. Loyalty in friendship, for I have had the joy of sharing his artistic adventure and epicurean side for more than thirty years. And loyalty in his work, because I know no other artist who has followed the same path without ever deviating from his goal.” Yvon Lambert, Œuvres sur papier et photographies, La Collection Yvon Lambert dialogue avec des artistes contemporains, Yokohama Museum of Art, 1998 The fourth volume of the Lambert Collection art book series had to be devoted to Niele Toroni and Yvon Lambert, such is the strength of the relationship between the collector and the artist. Their relationship began back in 1970 when Toroni presented his first exhibition at the gallery, and continues through 2021, when the Lambert Collection will be exhibiting its full catalogue of the artist’s work, spotlighting two works produced in situ for the museum opening in 2000, composed of a series of paintings on paper, tracing paper, canvas, wood, and even on a school blackboard. This book of the exhibition contains gallery views as well as an interview between Niele Toroni and Yvon Lambert. For more than fifty years, Niele Toroni has been developing a subversive and radical vision of the pictorial act. As early as 1966, his method had already begun to take shape, using a brush no.50 to print repetitive brushstrokes at regular 30-cm intervals. This work was presented for the first time in 1967, beside Daniel Buren, Olivier Mosset and Michel Parmentier, in the pop-up exhibition “Manifestation I” at the 18th Young Painter’s Fair at Paris’s Museum of Modern Art. The “work/painting” – as the painter calls it – consists of a reproducing a single, minimal, systematic gesture, “which is never the same”. The work/painting has no story to tell and no underlying message to convey. What matters is what you see. The works “reboot” our visual experience. Changing viewers’ perceptions is Niele Toroni’s great ambition; for him, painting means “learning to see again”.

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From September 2021, Jean-Michel Othoniel will be taking over the whole of the Petit Palais and its garden. It will be the biggest exhibition devoted to the artist in Paris since the My Way retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in 2011. The Petit Palais itself and its history will provide the running thread of the exhibition, the works entering into a dialogue with the architecture of the building and its garden. For the occasion, Othoniel has come up with the Narcissus Theorem focusing on the man of the beautiful flower who in his own reflection also reflects the world around him. Narcissism is not always a neurosis and can play a positive role in aesthetic creation. And sublimation is not always the negation of desire but can be a means of engaging with an ideal. Whereupon Narcissus no longer says ‘I love myself as I am’ but rather ‘I am as I love myself’. Featuring over 70 new works, the ‘Narcissus Theorem’ exhibition weaves the artist’s spell once again and explores the theory of reflections that he has been developing for nearly a decade in conjunction with the Mexican mathematician Aubin Arroyo, imbuing his recurring themes with a fresh and visionary meaning in the world of today. The exhibition welcomes us with a river of a thousand shimmering blue bricks flowing down the main staircase of the Petit Palais, indicating the start of the path that we will be following. Inspired by the sumptuous architectural flourishes of the Petit Palais and the flowers of its garden, the artist has installed some twenty new works: mirrored pieces that reflect the frescoes of the peristyle painted by Paul Baudoüin, monumental water lilies placed on the mirrors of the water basins with their blue mosaics, gold necklaces attached to the branches of trees from the Orient, and pearls niched in the peristyle. The Crown of the Night comes from a forest in northern Europe and for a long time this sculpture was hidden beneath the 300-year old oaks of a cathedral-like forest. And now, like a coloured glass spider, it majestically fills the dome of the palace’s northern staircase. Narcissus’s grotto awaits us at the foot of the staircase, where we find the whole universe of reflections so central to Othoniel’s art and astutely orchestrated by Aubin Arroyo, including the two-tone Precious Stonewall and monochrome triptychs. The wild knots created over the course of nearly a decade are like Borromean rings in which we discover our own reflections and which reflect themselves in an endless mise en abyme.

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The refinement of equestrian art meets Koto Bolofo’s photography to create a rare work of majestic grace In a similar fashion to his Hermès project, renowned fashion photographer Koto Bolofo (born 1959) moved in backstage at the Versailles Equestrian Academy where the legendary horse trainer, film producer and impresario Bartabas introduced him to the exceptional riders of the royal stables. This opportunity to witness at close quarters the teaching of unique riding techniques (as well as the teaching of other disciplines such as fencing, legends, dance and singing) allowed the photographer to capture some extraordinary images of the equestrian arts. His black-and-white prints, his focus on surface and texture (such as leather, wood and horsehair), on the architectural qualities of the majestic setting, on costumes and the special attention paid to portraiture, create timeless images of an abiding quest for perfection.

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In 1900, as the first metro rolled from west to east across Paris, from Porte Maillot to Porte de Vincennes, photography had already been around for half a century. Turnofthe- century technological advances had created smaller, lighter cameras--the first Kodaks--which introduced the practice to a wider market. As Parisians fell in love with their new mode of transport, photography became a more widespread pastime. All genres and photographic practices are represented in this overview, from photojournalism to photo stories, street photography, fashion photography, architectural photography and industrial photography. The major figures of photography all snapped the Paris metro from the humanists - Doisneau, Henri-Cartier Bresson, Brassaï, Boubat, Izis, Kollar, Ronis, and more – to photojournalists such as Robert Capa, William Klein, and van der Keuken, not forgetting the scores of great international photographers who have passed through Paris. This ambitious work is a magnificent and charming hybrid: a history of the fascinating development of the Paris metro--long a cultural symbol of France, Art Nouveau and urban technological innovation--in all its diversity, alongside a history of photography in Paris from the early 20th century to the present day.

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This reference work presents the full range of the filmmaker’s artistry (photography, painting and music) through the optic of his films. It is an original work combining all facets of his creation for the first time, bringing a fresh vision of his cinematographic work. At the heart of the book is the exhibition curator Matthieu Orléan’s unpublished interview with Gus Van Sant in Portland in June 2015, discussing the whole scope of his work and inspirations through a network of images organized into themes. The work also explores the work of other artists whose heritage Gus Van Sant believes he is continuing: heritage beat, pop, rock, and experimental filmmakers, writers and visual artists like William Burroughs, William Eggleston, Harmony Korine and Ed Ruscha. There is also critical analysis of the many themes Gus Van Sant tackles in his work related to his own personal reflections on life, accompanied by first-hand anecdotes and an in-depth appraisal of the production processes used in each movie, from the experimental shorts of the 70s to Sea of Trees, presented at the Cannes Festival in May 2015, soon to be released in cinemas. The monograph also feature essays by Stéphane Bouquet, Benjamin Thorel, Bertrand Schefer and Stefano Boni, who provide their own interpretations of his protean work. Each essay tackles specific aspects of Gus Van Sant’s creation through reflections on the heterogenous nature of his methods and approach.

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Gorgeous paper constructions expand on Hermès’ scarf designs in this luxury pop-up book. Every year, the iconic luxury brand Hermès chooses a new theme to celebrate its creative direction for the upcoming year. This practice began in 1987, marking the brand’s 150th anniversary, and has since become a beloved tradition—a way to combine the house’s proud, storied heritage with its creative vision for the future. This year’s theme is ‘Let’s Play’, and Hermès is celebrating in style with this new, deluxe pop-up book. Featuring a selection of fourteen of the house’s iconic square scarf designs, both old and more recent, this book brings the designs alive with exhilarating ingenuity. Delicate paper constructions bring out the depth and volume within the scarf designs; zebras rear up, delicately arching trees grow from the page and painterly strokes detach themselves from the paper surface. This is the Hermès carré as you’ve never seen it before. For Hermès, a brand associated with the highest quality luxury materials and design, ‘play is movement, freedom, imagination, fantasy, seduction, lightness.’ Impeccably produced, Hermès Pop Up gives readers the chance to play around in the brand’s archives.

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Native Land explores people’s attachment to their countries, and the planet’s role in forming one’s identity, as well as the paths and consequences of human migrations. The book features photographs and movie stills by Raymond Depardon, multi-screen installations and press articles, while the subjects discussed range fromTuvaluans forced to leave their Pacific island, to a human cannonball who catapults himself over the US-Mexico border.

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Between 1978 and 1981, Sophie Calle went on a clandestine exploration of the then abandoned Hôtel du Palais d'Orsay. She selected room 501 as her home and without any pre-established method, set about photographing the abandoned hotel over 5 years. As she explored, she picked up items she found: room numbers, customer reception cards, old telephones, diaries, messages addressed to a certain “Oddo” and more besides. What happened to room 501? More than 40 years later it has disappeared and an elevator has taken its place. At the invitation of Donatien Grau, the Musée d’Orsay curator, Sophie Calle returned, equipped with a flashlight, to explore the site again during the lockdown period. She hunted down the ghosts of the Palais d'Orsay, now connected to the present by the visitors that had also deserted the museum. The work reconstructs the artist’s archive of photography, letters, invoices and other daily items which bring a forgotten past back to life. To provide commentary on her discoveries, Sophie Calle called upon the archaeologist Jean-Paul Demoule, who writes a series of texts combining fact and fiction. All this evidence has been assembled together to create an objet d’art which resembles an investigation notebook.

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Memoria: stories from another History is the idea of a collective memory made up of a myriad of stories, stories, questions and experiences scattered in our individual and personal memories. Revealed here, through the works of artists whose work refers to the (re) construction of a common whole, a universal whole, which renews our look at contemporary creation from Africa and its diasporas. Featuring fourteen artists who's work stand out for their desire to move the boundaries of art, to “bring together elsewhere” and to show the diversity of our common individual and ultimately collective histories. The selected works explore painting, textiles, sculpture, video and even performance. They make up a journey that echoes on the one hand a demystified reading of parts of history and commonly disclosed beliefs about the African continent, and on the other hand the way in which the devices of imaginary stories are still in the making. work, particularly in the economic and resource redistribution fields. Through this multiplicity of mediums, the works deliver their essence and show us artists with engaged practice, strong in their narrative power, anchored in their fluctuating geographies and in their time. By questioning our thought mechanisms, Memoria: stories from another History intends to open a discussion on our ability to renew our knowledge, to listen to different stories and to (re) question stereotypes and received ideas.

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A unique look at the works of Djamel Tatah and those of the minimalist artists in the Lambert Collection. Djamel Tatah’s refined paintings reveal the way in which humanity can assert itself as a presence in the world. From reality, ordinary life and world events, the artist paints life-size figures which seem to be suspended in time, set in unspecified places and caught up in a world of silence. Reinterpreting solitude as virtue, Tatah intends to surpass reality, experimenting with colour, light and line to explore his feelings of being part of the world. This catalogue creates a dialogue between the collection’s minimalist artists such as Robert Barry, Robert Ryman, Robert Mangold, Richard Serra, Sol LeWitt and Brice Marden, among others, and Tatah’s sober refined life-size figures, which somehow seem suspended in time and detached from the world. The artist draws inspiration from everyday situations or major news events to create a metaphysical representation of contemporary man. While Djamel Tatah’s work shows a clear relationship with modernist and contemporary monochrome painting, it is also part of a more classical tradition. Hence, the Paris School of Fine Art (ENSBA), where has taught since 2008, has loaned over fifty works from its own illustration collection, works by Delacroix, Matisse, Corneille de Lyon, Cimabue, Giotto, Piero della Francesca, and more, with a view to broadening the dialogue with Djamel Tatah’s work over time.

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While undertaking this photographic investigation of North Korea, French photographer Stéphan Gladieu (born 1969) found himself under constant surveillance everywhere he went. Because of these constraints, he managed to invent an ingenious space of freedom. Gladieu created mirror-portraits of people he encountered and was hosted by, often full length, which require a face-on pose and a direct gaze. In this way, he managed to create a form similar to North Korea’s propaganda imagery, which made his approach more comprehensible and permissible to the authorities. Fifty years after its foundation, North Korea endures a media portrayal of war, famine, nuclear programs and military parades. Indoors, people are required to display portraits of the regime’s founder, Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-Il. Family photos are not allowed; nor are personal portraits. Consequently, Gladieu’s work attains an almost historic act of intervention in the country’s visual politics.

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In the mid-1970s in the United States as feminism gained huge momentum, three American photographers Eve Arnold, Abigail Heyman and Susan Meiselas published books of a new kind. Combining testimonies and images, they offer very original documentaries of women at work, their daily routines and their private lives. The trio brought their own style and experimented with the book format while showing women in a new light through photography. Their work sidestepped clichés to create alternative representations.This catalogue reveals their unusual approach to their works. The first, Growing Up Female by Abigail Heyman, published in 1974, is a kind of feminist personal diary. The photographer casts a lucid eye at her own life and questions the imprisonment of women in stereotype roles. The second, The Unretouched Woman, published by Eve Arnold in 1976, shows unknown women and celebrities in unexpected moments of their daily lives. The photos were deliberately not retouched or staged and, through them, the photographer offers a heteroclite and nuanced vision of women far from the glamour of glossy magazines. The third, Carnival Strippers, published in the same year by Susan Meiselas, is the fruit of three years of investigation into fairground striptease sideshows in the north-east of the United States. Through the performers’ long testimonies, the book gives a voice to its silent subjects, depicting their work, their dreams and their ambitions.The images provide an original perspective of female bodies, revealing their invisible make-up artistry and the staging involved behind their public appearances. In doing so it reveals a surprising, previously unseen glimpse into their sometimes prosaic, sometimes harsh private lives. It also reveals the social conventions and norms defining the status of women in society, within couples or within the domestic space to reveal working women, striving for independence and freedom.

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Devised for Château La Coste, Mater Earth takes us into the heart of humanity and the myths of creation. Prune Nourry created a monumental sculpture representing a pregnant work emerging from the earth, an immersive installation based on the principles of eco-responsible architecture. The work was first imagined back in 2010, when the artist invited a pregnant woman to pose in a bath of milk for a photography session. From those images of serenity, she created a life-size sculpture. Prune Nourry was instantly seized by a desire to produce a larger scale version of the work but it took several years of reflection before the desire became reality. The book follows the creation of the statue in situ, offering readers an original experience of symbolic rebirth. The work brings an inside view of the project and the mysteries of its conception, situating Mater Earth in Prune Nourry’s rich and varied career. We see the stages of its development towards an ideal of “ultracollective chaos” involving multiple artists and artisans, as well as Prune Nourry’s own ethical and ecological reflections and self-questioning. The work provides a rare vision of the gestation of creation, a window onto the creative process, showing everything that nourished the project and brought it to life. The illustrations resonate with this birthing process, creating a catalogue of the cultural and artistic motifs that inspired the work. Nancy Huston’s journal provides sensitive, thoughtful insight into maternity, reflecting the slow metamorphosis of all works of creation.

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Founded 20 years ago in London by the dancer and choreographer Akram Khan (born 1974) and the producer Farooq Chaudhry, Akram Khan Company has become one of the most dynamic troupes on the international contemporary dance scene. Trained in Kathak, Khan has created an innovative choreographic language that fuses the vocabulary of traditional Indian dance with contemporary dance. His performances also feature collaborators from a vast array of disciplines: he has collaborated with the dancer Sylvie Guillem, the actress Juliette Binoche, the artists Antony Gormley and Anish Kapoor, the choreographer and dancer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Israel Galvan and Kylie Minogue, among others. This beautifully illustrated book is the first monograph on Khan, appraising two decades of his ceaseless production and the 26 pieces created by Akram Khan Company since its foundation.

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For forty years, life in Afghanistan has been shaped by wars, the destruction of heritage, terrorist attacks, everyday fears and hopes, and migrations. In 2001, the Taliban government was overthrown by an international coalition bringing hopes of stability and reconstruction. The intervention did not however bring total peace. In this period of optimism, a number of international creation programs were set up as young Afghan artists returned from exile. Artists in the country - either self-taught having grown up under a Taliban regime that banned images, or trained during their exile - had no heritage to take on and no classical rules to break: anything seemed possible. Kharmohra is named after a gland taken from a donkey's neck that, on drying, becomes as hard as stone and is said to bring happiness by making the owner's most secret dreams come true. The metaphor is used to show how contemporary Afghan art is a long way from the romantic expectations with which Westerners often approach the country. The artists explore a wide variety of forms and media to express the horror of terrorism and the omnipresent shadow of death looming over the hostile urban environment. The works stand as an often humorous testimony to the peace that was promised but never delivered and the bitter illusions this fostered. All express a spirit of revolt against the most oppressive traditional forces that repress women and homosexuals as well as the Hazara ethnic group. Through their artistic practices, the artists show how salvation, however slight, is achievable.

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