Évocateur
12 Oct - 17 Nov 2012
ÉVOCATEUR - exhibition for the 14th Ricard Foundation Prize
With Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc, Bertille Bak, Katinka Bock, David Douard, Louise Hervé & Chloé Maillet, Emilie Pitoiset
Curated by Elena Filipovic for the 14th Ricard Foundation Prize
12 October - 17 November 2012
All too often, the artwork is expected to be carrier of its own, fully autonomous meaning; it is expect to act, and to act upon us, from within its discrete borders, be they spatial, conceptual, temporal .... As a result and frequently, little attention is paid to the "back stories" that animate the artist's thinking about the object-whether a film, performance, sculpture, installation, or photography. The narratives, histories, clues, or, even, lies that precede and sometimes even exceed the artwork get ignored or are considered secondary, at best. How, then, to classify artworks that evoke more than they assert, haunt more than they decree, unsettle more than they reassure, and that do all this from places both within and without the neat contours of the artwork itself?
This 14th edition of the exhibition for the Prix Fondation d'entreprise Ricard, according to its mandate, brings together artists on the basis of pre-established criteria, such as: "French-born or living and working in France," "under forty years old," "emerging," etcetera so as to bestow recognition on a chosen few, and a prize, on the lucky winner. It is easy to explain why some artists are excluded-criteria and guidelines being what they are-but it is rare that one can adequately explain why those that are in actually made the cut. Criteria have a way of making the selection process seem objective, but the whole point of exhibition-making, or artistic endeavors in general, is at once to accept and subvert any governing criteria, to reach, and reveal or subvert, its organizing logic. Évocateur proposes a gathering of young artists who fulfill the given criteria for the exhibition, but also fulfill another, more nebulous one: each of the artists have shown that they can enrapture us with a tangible result, "the artwork"; where this result comes from, however, is just as pertinent to their artistic language: the research, as elaborate as it is eccentric and idiosyncratic, the thought process, and the ricocheting of ideas that is part of their way of getting to the construction of the artwork are, in each case, as pregnant as the artwork itself. These are artists for whom the latent, just as much as if not more than the concrete, and the back story, just as much as the visible and tangible, are the undertows that pull their work.
From the elaborate archival research and enquiries into modernity's colonial rhetoric that shape many of Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc's projects to the sometimes long-term observation and construction of human relationships that form the basis of Bertille Bak's filmic narratives, from the allusive material and spatial interactions that are the basis of Katinka Bock's objects to the seemingly endless and divergent pop cultural reference points that underpin David Douard's pluriform installations, and from the quasi-archeological research and peculiar stories that are the very foundations of Louise Hervé & Chloé Maillet's films, performances, and objects to the - usually fictional - characters or rituals that haunt Emilie Pitoiset's objects and performances, each creates artworks that exceed their visible, tangible, and ultimate forms. However different the practices of the artists in the exhibition and however far away each of them might be from each other in terms of subject matter, chosen medium, or formal concerns, they are gathered here as an experiment about what it could mean for an exhibition to have as one of its defining characteristics the attempt to avoid having what is on view as the whole or end of the exhibition itself.
Elena Filipovic, june 2012A Congolese trilogy
On the occasion ofthe exhibition, Mathieu K. Abonnenc presents Une trilogie congolaise, three films by East German directors : Walter Heynowski and Gerhard Scheumann, projected by SALANS society. These films return to conflict of 1964 in the Congo, and attempt to unravel the implications and interests of Western countries, including Germany, in these events.
Kommando 52, 1965, black and white, 33 minutes. German film subtitled in French.
Der Lachende Mann, 1966, black and white, 61mn 45. German film subtitled in French.
Der Fall Bernd K., 1967, black and white, 31mn44s. German film subtitled in French.
total time: 02h07mn.
With Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc, Bertille Bak, Katinka Bock, David Douard, Louise Hervé & Chloé Maillet, Emilie Pitoiset
Curated by Elena Filipovic for the 14th Ricard Foundation Prize
12 October - 17 November 2012
All too often, the artwork is expected to be carrier of its own, fully autonomous meaning; it is expect to act, and to act upon us, from within its discrete borders, be they spatial, conceptual, temporal .... As a result and frequently, little attention is paid to the "back stories" that animate the artist's thinking about the object-whether a film, performance, sculpture, installation, or photography. The narratives, histories, clues, or, even, lies that precede and sometimes even exceed the artwork get ignored or are considered secondary, at best. How, then, to classify artworks that evoke more than they assert, haunt more than they decree, unsettle more than they reassure, and that do all this from places both within and without the neat contours of the artwork itself?
This 14th edition of the exhibition for the Prix Fondation d'entreprise Ricard, according to its mandate, brings together artists on the basis of pre-established criteria, such as: "French-born or living and working in France," "under forty years old," "emerging," etcetera so as to bestow recognition on a chosen few, and a prize, on the lucky winner. It is easy to explain why some artists are excluded-criteria and guidelines being what they are-but it is rare that one can adequately explain why those that are in actually made the cut. Criteria have a way of making the selection process seem objective, but the whole point of exhibition-making, or artistic endeavors in general, is at once to accept and subvert any governing criteria, to reach, and reveal or subvert, its organizing logic. Évocateur proposes a gathering of young artists who fulfill the given criteria for the exhibition, but also fulfill another, more nebulous one: each of the artists have shown that they can enrapture us with a tangible result, "the artwork"; where this result comes from, however, is just as pertinent to their artistic language: the research, as elaborate as it is eccentric and idiosyncratic, the thought process, and the ricocheting of ideas that is part of their way of getting to the construction of the artwork are, in each case, as pregnant as the artwork itself. These are artists for whom the latent, just as much as if not more than the concrete, and the back story, just as much as the visible and tangible, are the undertows that pull their work.
From the elaborate archival research and enquiries into modernity's colonial rhetoric that shape many of Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc's projects to the sometimes long-term observation and construction of human relationships that form the basis of Bertille Bak's filmic narratives, from the allusive material and spatial interactions that are the basis of Katinka Bock's objects to the seemingly endless and divergent pop cultural reference points that underpin David Douard's pluriform installations, and from the quasi-archeological research and peculiar stories that are the very foundations of Louise Hervé & Chloé Maillet's films, performances, and objects to the - usually fictional - characters or rituals that haunt Emilie Pitoiset's objects and performances, each creates artworks that exceed their visible, tangible, and ultimate forms. However different the practices of the artists in the exhibition and however far away each of them might be from each other in terms of subject matter, chosen medium, or formal concerns, they are gathered here as an experiment about what it could mean for an exhibition to have as one of its defining characteristics the attempt to avoid having what is on view as the whole or end of the exhibition itself.
Elena Filipovic, june 2012A Congolese trilogy
On the occasion ofthe exhibition, Mathieu K. Abonnenc presents Une trilogie congolaise, three films by East German directors : Walter Heynowski and Gerhard Scheumann, projected by SALANS society. These films return to conflict of 1964 in the Congo, and attempt to unravel the implications and interests of Western countries, including Germany, in these events.
Kommando 52, 1965, black and white, 33 minutes. German film subtitled in French.
Der Lachende Mann, 1966, black and white, 61mn 45. German film subtitled in French.
Der Fall Bernd K., 1967, black and white, 31mn44s. German film subtitled in French.
total time: 02h07mn.