Push Your Art
08 - 23 Nov 2013
PUSH YOUR ART, THE EXHIBITION
Cécile B. Evans, winner, Mathieu Mercier, sponsor of the 3d Creation Contest Push Your Art 2013
8 - 23 November 2013
From November 8 to 23, the exhibition “Push Your Art” gives pride of place to the third dimension, presenting 3D works by Cécile B. Evans, Mathieu Mercier and the three finalists of the competition: David Ancelin, Philippe Engelhardt and Romain Sein.
THE 2013 “PUSH YOUR ART” EXHIBITION
Today, 3D video is a fascinating and paradoxical medium, in which a virtual esthetic encounters and simulates the sensations and sights of reality. Somewhere between the world and the artist’s imagination, this technology makes it possible to freely invest a multitude of images, surfaces and subjects, ambiguously playing on the viewers’ perceptions and bringing them physically as close to the work as possible.
Already, famous artists and filmmakers such as Jeremy Deller and Wim Wenders have used this developing technique, an original process that makes it possible for artists to conceive and create unsettling videos, in which fiction combines with the illusion of reality. For the exhibition “Push Your Art,” each artist has seized on this new media in a highly individual manner, immersing us in scenarios as diverse as they are surprising, persuading us to believe in this illusion.
THE 2013 “PUSH YOUR ART” CONTEST
For the first edition of this international competition, the Palais de Tokyo and Orange gave artists, aged 35 and under, the opportunity to explore the creative potential of 3D technology, thus allowing the public to discover a new facet of this technology.
The ten selected candidates had the privilege of attending a three-day Master Class at the Palais de Tokyo in March 2013. Their projects ripened thanks to the artistic and technological assistance they received through a program of lectures and workshops, led by professionals in the fields of art and 3D technology. They participated in a meeting with filmmaker Wim Wenders, who described his experience working with 3D technology.
After this Master Class, a prestigious jury, composed of Mathieu Mercier, Jean de Loisy (president of the Palais de Tokyo) and Christine Albanel (former Minister of Culture and Communication, currently Orange’s executive director in charge of Corporate Social Responsibility, Events, Partnerships and Outreach) selected four finalists.
* The jury : Jean de Loisy, President of Palais de Tokyo ; Christine Albanel, Executive Director in charge of Events, Partnerships and Solidarity at Orange, Vice-President of the Orange Foundation ; Mathieu Mercier, artist and sponsor of the competition ; Karen Archey, American Art critic ; Samuel Bianchini, artist and professor at the Ecole Nationale des Arts Décoratifs de Paris ; Jean Blaise, Diector of Le Voyage à Nantes ; Fabrice Bousteau, Managing editor at Beaux-Arts Magazine ; Joséphine Derobe, stereographer ; Jean-Hubert Martin, general curator of Heritage and curator ; Ghislaine Le Rhun-Gautier, Orange Director of Business Development.
The Brightness
Cécile B. Evans
Lauréate de l’édition 2013 du concours Push Your Art
Cécile B. Evans explores the ways in which contemporary society values emotion. Her work uses the methods of production, modes of representation, and the perceptions of emotion to reflect on our complex relationship to the human condition today. She often challenges the established economies of these within culture in favor of personal experience, flattening hierarchies that devalue subjectivity.
Through several different mediums- from video to sculpture, collage to performance, Cécile B. Evans draws our attention to the ways in which we share our emotions within networks and codified systems, thereby interrogating the existence of the immaterial as material. For the exhibition “Push Your Art”, the winner of the prize presents The Brightness. Using the popular aesthetic of tv news magazine programs, this video begins with an interview of real-life phantom limb specialist Dr. Cécile B. Evans by the artist herself, which is then interrupted by an animated choreography of loose teeth. From there, this work uses the weight of its medium, the 3D moving image, to put forward the uncanny presence of loss and our relationship to its elusive mass. Born in the United-States in 1983.
Cécile B.Evans lives and works in Berlin and London.
Mathieu Mercier
Sponsor of the 3D creation contest Push Your Art 2013
“Mathieu Mercier’s heterogeneous work defies the criteria that critics have attempted to use to analyze and describe it. Objectivity, appropriation, ready-made, simulacra, thwarted functionalism, abstraction: these terms generally apply to his work, but this enumeration is indicative in itself of a nomenclature that verges on the absurd. Although Mercier makes abundant references to the humanities, social and natural sciences, the associations he produces maintain an element of irreducibility within the contemporary rule of the object.”
Gallien Dejean, art critic.
The iconoclast Mathieu Mercier multiplies his fields of investigation, advancing through distortions and diversions, considering the performative potential of new technologies. Sponsor of the exhibition “Push Your Art,” the artist created the work Le Nu [The Nude]. This video, using a stereoscopic process, slowly and progressively displays a naked body, transformed into an abstract vision that can appear, at times, like a landscape. The artist uses a high-tech process to film one of the most enduring and traditional subjects of the history of art.
Born in France in 1970, Mathieu Mercier lives and works in Paris.
The three finalists of the competition
David Ancelin
David Ancelin’s Deep Blue video project, a sculpture for a desert,” combines the vocabularies of the absurd and the poetic. This work, constituted of modeling pixels, blurs scales and multiplies possibilities: it fixates on the descent of a drop of water that can evoke a dive in an empty pool or a monumental architecture. Playing on optical disorders, the artist emphasizes the disturbing strangeness of this shape, whose origins are unknown. Through 3D technology, he invokes the surprising and fictional presence of a drop of water in a deserted landscape.
Born in France in 1978, David Ancelin lives and works in Paris.
Philipp Engelhardt
The great-grandfather of Philipp Engelhardt was a so-called “sunday painter”. Four of his paintings were hung in his grandson’s flat as he was a child, often asking himself about the secret kept in these images. The artist uses the 3D technic as a tool to realize his old fantasy and finally animate the protagonists so that they can interact and move from one painting to another. Recreating the domestic interior of his grandparents’ house thanks to his aunt’s memories, the artist attempts to find the original and mysterious gesture of the disappeared author.
Born in Germany in 1984. Philipp Engelhardt lives and works in Munich.
Romain Sein
Der Teufelstisch, “the Devil’s Table,” is a rock of natural sand, found in the Palatinate region in Southwest Germany. This sandstone block, nearly 14 meters high, was sculpted by erosion over the course of millions of years. Fascinated by this sculpture, the artist Romain Sein has developed a scenario around the figure of a young man, irresistibly attracted to this work of the devil. The viewer follows the climber’s slow and difficult ascent, his utopic quest to conquer this legendary sculpture. Echoing this video, a vitrine presents the different elements of study, research and preliminary preparation of the performance, as evidence of his attempts to tame this monument.
Born in France in 1981, Romain Sein lives and works in Paris.
Cécile B. Evans, winner, Mathieu Mercier, sponsor of the 3d Creation Contest Push Your Art 2013
8 - 23 November 2013
From November 8 to 23, the exhibition “Push Your Art” gives pride of place to the third dimension, presenting 3D works by Cécile B. Evans, Mathieu Mercier and the three finalists of the competition: David Ancelin, Philippe Engelhardt and Romain Sein.
THE 2013 “PUSH YOUR ART” EXHIBITION
Today, 3D video is a fascinating and paradoxical medium, in which a virtual esthetic encounters and simulates the sensations and sights of reality. Somewhere between the world and the artist’s imagination, this technology makes it possible to freely invest a multitude of images, surfaces and subjects, ambiguously playing on the viewers’ perceptions and bringing them physically as close to the work as possible.
Already, famous artists and filmmakers such as Jeremy Deller and Wim Wenders have used this developing technique, an original process that makes it possible for artists to conceive and create unsettling videos, in which fiction combines with the illusion of reality. For the exhibition “Push Your Art,” each artist has seized on this new media in a highly individual manner, immersing us in scenarios as diverse as they are surprising, persuading us to believe in this illusion.
THE 2013 “PUSH YOUR ART” CONTEST
For the first edition of this international competition, the Palais de Tokyo and Orange gave artists, aged 35 and under, the opportunity to explore the creative potential of 3D technology, thus allowing the public to discover a new facet of this technology.
The ten selected candidates had the privilege of attending a three-day Master Class at the Palais de Tokyo in March 2013. Their projects ripened thanks to the artistic and technological assistance they received through a program of lectures and workshops, led by professionals in the fields of art and 3D technology. They participated in a meeting with filmmaker Wim Wenders, who described his experience working with 3D technology.
After this Master Class, a prestigious jury, composed of Mathieu Mercier, Jean de Loisy (president of the Palais de Tokyo) and Christine Albanel (former Minister of Culture and Communication, currently Orange’s executive director in charge of Corporate Social Responsibility, Events, Partnerships and Outreach) selected four finalists.
* The jury : Jean de Loisy, President of Palais de Tokyo ; Christine Albanel, Executive Director in charge of Events, Partnerships and Solidarity at Orange, Vice-President of the Orange Foundation ; Mathieu Mercier, artist and sponsor of the competition ; Karen Archey, American Art critic ; Samuel Bianchini, artist and professor at the Ecole Nationale des Arts Décoratifs de Paris ; Jean Blaise, Diector of Le Voyage à Nantes ; Fabrice Bousteau, Managing editor at Beaux-Arts Magazine ; Joséphine Derobe, stereographer ; Jean-Hubert Martin, general curator of Heritage and curator ; Ghislaine Le Rhun-Gautier, Orange Director of Business Development.
The Brightness
Cécile B. Evans
Lauréate de l’édition 2013 du concours Push Your Art
Cécile B. Evans explores the ways in which contemporary society values emotion. Her work uses the methods of production, modes of representation, and the perceptions of emotion to reflect on our complex relationship to the human condition today. She often challenges the established economies of these within culture in favor of personal experience, flattening hierarchies that devalue subjectivity.
Through several different mediums- from video to sculpture, collage to performance, Cécile B. Evans draws our attention to the ways in which we share our emotions within networks and codified systems, thereby interrogating the existence of the immaterial as material. For the exhibition “Push Your Art”, the winner of the prize presents The Brightness. Using the popular aesthetic of tv news magazine programs, this video begins with an interview of real-life phantom limb specialist Dr. Cécile B. Evans by the artist herself, which is then interrupted by an animated choreography of loose teeth. From there, this work uses the weight of its medium, the 3D moving image, to put forward the uncanny presence of loss and our relationship to its elusive mass. Born in the United-States in 1983.
Cécile B.Evans lives and works in Berlin and London.
Mathieu Mercier
Sponsor of the 3D creation contest Push Your Art 2013
“Mathieu Mercier’s heterogeneous work defies the criteria that critics have attempted to use to analyze and describe it. Objectivity, appropriation, ready-made, simulacra, thwarted functionalism, abstraction: these terms generally apply to his work, but this enumeration is indicative in itself of a nomenclature that verges on the absurd. Although Mercier makes abundant references to the humanities, social and natural sciences, the associations he produces maintain an element of irreducibility within the contemporary rule of the object.”
Gallien Dejean, art critic.
The iconoclast Mathieu Mercier multiplies his fields of investigation, advancing through distortions and diversions, considering the performative potential of new technologies. Sponsor of the exhibition “Push Your Art,” the artist created the work Le Nu [The Nude]. This video, using a stereoscopic process, slowly and progressively displays a naked body, transformed into an abstract vision that can appear, at times, like a landscape. The artist uses a high-tech process to film one of the most enduring and traditional subjects of the history of art.
Born in France in 1970, Mathieu Mercier lives and works in Paris.
The three finalists of the competition
David Ancelin
David Ancelin’s Deep Blue video project, a sculpture for a desert,” combines the vocabularies of the absurd and the poetic. This work, constituted of modeling pixels, blurs scales and multiplies possibilities: it fixates on the descent of a drop of water that can evoke a dive in an empty pool or a monumental architecture. Playing on optical disorders, the artist emphasizes the disturbing strangeness of this shape, whose origins are unknown. Through 3D technology, he invokes the surprising and fictional presence of a drop of water in a deserted landscape.
Born in France in 1978, David Ancelin lives and works in Paris.
Philipp Engelhardt
The great-grandfather of Philipp Engelhardt was a so-called “sunday painter”. Four of his paintings were hung in his grandson’s flat as he was a child, often asking himself about the secret kept in these images. The artist uses the 3D technic as a tool to realize his old fantasy and finally animate the protagonists so that they can interact and move from one painting to another. Recreating the domestic interior of his grandparents’ house thanks to his aunt’s memories, the artist attempts to find the original and mysterious gesture of the disappeared author.
Born in Germany in 1984. Philipp Engelhardt lives and works in Munich.
Romain Sein
Der Teufelstisch, “the Devil’s Table,” is a rock of natural sand, found in the Palatinate region in Southwest Germany. This sandstone block, nearly 14 meters high, was sculpted by erosion over the course of millions of years. Fascinated by this sculpture, the artist Romain Sein has developed a scenario around the figure of a young man, irresistibly attracted to this work of the devil. The viewer follows the climber’s slow and difficult ascent, his utopic quest to conquer this legendary sculpture. Echoing this video, a vitrine presents the different elements of study, research and preliminary preparation of the performance, as evidence of his attempts to tame this monument.
Born in France in 1981, Romain Sein lives and works in Paris.