Reportage Art Centre milk Castres-Spring in September 2009 Feature
"Air, dust, fingerprint, haunting"
Discovery of the exhibition "For the little girl" in Hall Viviès to Castres in the Spring of September, Where I am does not exist, 2009.
implementation of the Comtesse de Segur exhaling the fragrance of the nineteenth century, little girls models, find their place in a trilogy dedicated to children. Christian Bernard, artistic director Wherever I go I'm already (2008) and Where I'm not there (2009), who live in mind the upcoming closure of the art center and sensitive to the presence Nearby, Tombs of the Countess and her little girls (Verfeil in the little cemetery of St. Sernin of Rais, between Toulouse and Lavaur) chooses to make of this coincidence the starting point of a work in situ. Cathryn Boch and Beatrice Cussol, Sylvie Auvray and Fleur Noguera agreed to expand their footprints to the imaginary hollow on the walls and floor of the bed resistance, moving and delicate. The heart of the Hotel which is located inside the body almost entirely tattooed soil walls and ceilings appear speckled with paint stories that cleaves the space, extends the time and improvises Sites floating anxious to meet, I thought I receive a call, the call that art can launch itself, the vast otherness, one that knows how to launch the creation of creation.
As I conversed with no Christian Bernard, curator of the festival (2008 and 2009) and Director of MAMCO Geneva.
"This project was unexpected. Cathryn, Beatrice, Sylvie and Fleur did not know little or never knew the four four. And they accepted the challenge to meet and live together from September 17 to deliver an exhibition on the 27th, just ten days during which they learned about each other then to imagine how to work together. Willing to take that risk is a special gift, I am very touched and fed gratitude to them because many artists, faced with this proposal, would have declined. I think the situation, the way the invitation has allowed the development of this idea of exposure. They are still young artists who have a very good maturity. They were able to anticipate problems that could undermine their collaboration. Also they have very quickly learned to work together. None came there without concern, but they seemed to share the same intention: do not succumb to the conflict and, I was pleasantly surprised to find that incredible complicity stood up to them to create bonds of friendship. Anyway, they ended up very well understood.
is an agreement that file and fuse into the traits that are intertwined and that one ends up not discern precisely what hands they come from?
Exactly, so that each worked in his early universe and its space, they have gradually begun to make reciprocal visits, which generated a healthy rivalry. This is exactly the opposite of a competition. What is particularly remarkable in this exhibition is that the works to which she gave birth are doomed to disappear, the place being under threat of closure is probably the last exhibition that takes place there. They are still ten days of their life where they worked morning, noon and evening in vain to speak, except for the beauty of the gesture. It's memorable. Nobody tried to pull the cover to itself, on the contrary, they have really found to be complementary, to intersect and weave them unprincipled rivalry, without any relation strength. "
Interview October 12, 2009 in Toulouse
ears When they heard that the Hall Vivies in Castres, one of the sites of the Art Center Milk (Albi, France) would soon close its doors, a language s' hastened to meet with Jackie Ruth Meyer, director of the places. The remarks were exchanged in the garden of the Hotel de Vivies, under the watchful eye of Camille Henrot facilities.
... From the desire
constructivism "Art is what makes life more interesting than art" Filliou
Hello Jackie, closing this place awakens in you a anger, I guess. Montaigne in his Essays written: "When I am upset it arouses my attention, not my anger." What do you think?
Montaigne is a man wise. I do not know if I have this degree of wisdom. However I must say that I am no longer either in anger, if I ever have been. In fact, initially there is a big disappointment. The team of Art Center has worked hard for three years to complete this merger and take over this place since it was one of the places of the Art Center Milk so obviously when there is an announced end of that way, this is extremely disappointing. Since this new occurrence is in June, it seems likely that there will be other opportunities for deployment. We will, hopefully soon begin to imagine a future. Of course there is the place itself throughout its history, the memory of twenty-three years of art within these walls. I'm only here for three years, I represent a small part of the history of this place that has all its charm and has all the qualities of a labyrinth. I began to project work that would have to invest in other areas there. It is for these reasons, deep shame.
How did you find this place, the Hotel de Vivies?
I came as a visitor and colleague to visit the exhibitions organized by the previous director. I know this place very long. I really discovered in its intimacy and its full potential by working at the time the DRAC has proposed the merger to try to revive this place which was in difficulties.
Did you run an art center on the territory of the Tarn? Yes
point of view of art centers, I have directed that in this region. I am one of those pioneers, we can say, who have identified themselves to a place, a territory with a project. We're not very likely to be posted. It is a profession where one is constantly in contact with the outside, either by the artist, travel, exhibitions that are seen elsewhere so I do not feel completely identified with the Tarn. I'm not originally from here already. It's very fashionable subject of identity, but I hate that encloses. Like this opens. Tarn open to the world is perfect, not closed on him. Did you
studied history of art?
Not at all. I started by doing right. When we created these art centers were institutions that did not exist so they were really created from scratch with the artists. From this point of view I'm an autodidact perfect. We learned by doing, by creating structures to define these institutions. In the meantime I did an MA in sociology of art. I think my interest in art was first, I eventually developed, it is certainly a personal interest but also a situation that I particularly invited to become interested in context. I say "situation" arises not only in certain matches but also the context. The meeting with Daniel Buren has been a great adventure for me, I mean well before I worked with him it was someone in my meeting with the founder's art. He raised critical issues which have completely transformed the relationship with art and I often say that thanks to him that art centers exist, even if there is nothing. He laughs when I say that in front of him. I think if we had not considered that should also look at the context, it was he who gave the work to read, we could not imagine putting art centers in places that were not dedicated, from other economic backgrounds, social etc ... Suddenly we started to imagine integrate and produce works in and from places whose primary duties were not museum in contexts completely outside the norm.
In your background, how did your research organized and organized artists? Another digression
anger anyway. I think we we normalize so that there is less and less time for that. I often say, at first we could just let go for example to devote himself to mount exhibitions. Mounts sometimes lasted a month. We closed the office and we focus on this step. Today, it is unlikely. I go from time to time during the hanging and usually I share my evenings with artists. During the day, it's very rare because the paperwork has grown so much. And it's quite a pity, I think, on reflection and research that is still the starting point of our work. Is not it? We try to do with anyway. But ... Finally, I close the parenthesis.
How do I meet the artists?
It's just because I'm moving because I'm going to see exhibitions, because I meet in general works before meeting the artists. This rule is not always valid. But in most cases I encounter first works because they interest me and I meet artists. It happened to me also to work with artists who send me their file. I receive many that I did not see all the time. However, in those that I consider there are which has caught my attention, so I ask for a rendezvous in the artist's studio and then see if I can do something together, or at least to follow because there is obviously more artists whose work appeals to me that it is possible for me to explain. This is yet another ... So I think given a beautiful story, it is with Chen Zhen I have known for ten years before the time has come to expose. I have always been strongly interested in his work and simply, the circumstances that we have waited ten years for the right moment presents itself. You should know that one side is the interest on the work of an artist and the other is the reality of our projects for three years. But if they are followed rigorously we would still have three years late and this would exclude, somewhere, the spontaneous meeting. I always leave margins, sometimes it happens it happens very quickly precisely because there is a possibility for other cases is less obvious, longer because during the development of these projects is three years takes direction and although the problem and works of the artist we like, they must be able to enter in cultural issues of the moment. Many parameters come into play either facilitating or postponing some projects.
you ever happen to offer an artist, you do not know the perfect job, a residence? Is not this the place of surprises?
It happens. This happened to me again two weeks ago for the evening we held Oct. 31 with an artist who would love to do something with the milk so he showed me his work. I'm going to look and think. These Zevs, which is in the area of graffiti that I know little. And the discovery of lands unknown is exciting. I do not know yet whether to do something together, I do not know, I must look more closely. I also like that I destabilizes. Finally what is art? This is something that moves you significantly. I like being interrupted in my own projects because this is something that will make sense to shove, who will make us go elsewhere.
As such the facility that we have before, Camille Henrot around tree trunks? Camille
Henrot. She made her first sculptures inside, with cages. I met her there two or three years by an exhibition and then I have been presented. I was drawn to his work, so we planned an exhibition. It took that time and when she arrived here, she wanted to try an installation in the garden, its main theme is related to nature. I think the result is fantastic. A residence or work in situ often prove to be a key moment in the career of an artist whether young or older ones elsewhere even if it has a greater impact in a young artist. It's great to allow an artist to crystallize something, offer an opportunity for experimentation, production. So
Mills, in particular, are a place where it has frequently held and this is my pride. It is a very difficult place in a certain way, because so far. According to the artists, the approaches differ from that place, some people deal with a concern for harmomie, others disagree. While some rusent with the other instead of confronting it openly. This is another place, par excellence, with enormous stress and freedom proportional so it's pretty interesting. The question is: how to cope to something as prégnant? I noticed that very often the move to Mills was an important time for artists in the changes in their steps, paths that are open and then they have developed.
Moreover, recently, I was pleased to learn that Afif has received the Prix Marcel Duchamp. And when I sent him my congratulations I also sent a message to Michel who Rein said, "but in Albi that the project began with the songs, and since the Saadane continues." Still something wonderful ... that allow for clicks, this "something" coming energies are fantastic.
attachment to a center of art is as strong, if not more, it is equally fragile, that attachment to a region. We can relate it to a kind of anti-room or room deep. I found a sentence of Vasily Kandinsky: "Painting is an art and art as a whole is not a vain creation of objects that are lost in the void, but a power that has a purpose and should serve the evolution and refinement of the human soul. "Yesterday I
Because of the way and when I'm in the car, I listen to the radio. Some people are harnessed to translate the correspondence of Vincent Van Gogh they discussed the stereotypes we have about the painter, "what a little crazy uneducated delusional who would have painted a miracle," a kind of marginal. And he showed in that show precisely that Van Gogh was a very educated who knew very well what he was doing even though he also had behavioral problems. And he amongst other extreme lucidity about his work. He said: "We must bring the reality level of a myth." Which means being in reality and at the same time give it some force that exceeds a power. Yes, I will not talk about soul I speak rather of mind. I believe that art, artists and professionals of which I am feeding the mind.
It seems to me that the exhibition "little girls", proposed by Christian Bernard, whose theme is deliberately very strongly linked to the fate of the Art Center Hall Vivies or at closing time, raises the problem of nonsuit. You can read this exhibition as a kind of resistance that have all the "genius of non-place" to quote the title a book by Georges Didi-Huberman "air, dust, fingerprint, obsession." What do you think?
I do not know the work of Didi-Huberman but I think it actually named exactly what was desired for this exhibition of Spring in September. Yes, we can just meet something that is outside the world, a place that offers non-air. Jacques Rancière is saying that "art is to create the game, the air between things." I find it extremely important in a city there is a place where there is air, where it shifts the light where you see things in a otherwise. And on the other hand, I also think that the place is actually not important. Art is there forever and it changes constantly. We can recreate an air bubble in addition to ensuring especially that there is the greatest possible freedoms. Castres I hope that we can renew this bubble. Christian Bernard
relied on the presence of the tomb of the Countess de Segur to Verfeil. It is amazing place, I recommend you to discover. The graves are facing the chapel. And cons below, in a cemetery oldest obviously had just been released from some graves, I saw a large outcropping of bones and I found this absolutely extraordinary circumstances, as if the mind in a way embodied by the bones dated back to earth and had to interfere. I thought it was a very good starting point for the exhibition. The artists have retained a certain irony a bit creaky noticeable throughout the works presented and quite stimulating.
Marc Augé, sociologist, anthropologist defines the non-place, such as crossing points, airports, for example, where there is no identity.
I dreamed a little bit but the total area of fantasy. Would it not be possible to let it show up for a while and Hall Vivies become a venue you think we could open at certain times. I have not yet addressed the issue to the owner but I will do so even if I dream a little. There will be more rent that does we will be up more but I'm wondering, according to his intentions too, what will become of this place now?
We come here in a problem of art history: veiling, unveiling, veiling etc. ... We would have a treasure that we would choose from time to time to disclose. If the landlord is responsive to my arguments, why not? We must continue to dream, right?
Pablo Picasso wrote, "There is art in past or future. The art that is not in this will never be. " Direct a center of art is to touch the heart of a certain absolute present, at least worry about constantly renewing the present time. Is there room for hope in the profession that you practice?
The question of hope, I spoke with this summer that I met Denys Zacharopoulos Center Art Sète. I complained a bit about the conditions, prospects were not exactly hopeful. I remember telling him, once we advance a little bit there are a hindrance. I used another picture, I said "we climbed the mountain, with the merger we arrived at the summit, before there is a piece of plain, here it is going to dream, think, go further and then in reality it tumbles into the hills and we need to go up another "and he replied" yes, but it's always like that "and somehow it's true. I think of art as being deeply another company and it is therefore inevitable that it is a struggle. This is only my opinion, but I think we're warriors, basically. And there are moments of discouragement. Then corrected himself to hope, to make that possible but we have absolute masters for that: they are artists, they are the ones who make us dream. These are the artists who give us the intensity rather than the dream, intensity and energy. So since we are in quotes: "Art is vitamins" (Eric Dickman, Swedish artist)
Is it a specific meeting that you set off the desire to expose artists?
While this was not a meeting. My first encounter was in fact one of literature which was the most accessible art. I have always lived with the artistic dimension is the spice of my life you can say it as such. I could never imagine being away from music, not literature. I have a funny story because I was in a rather austere world of the family especially with a Protestant mother, there was not any picture on the wall and I was studying modern dance to the great regret of my father who believed he was a bourgeois art form so it was banned, which made things even more interesting. Actually I had little choice in the city where I was there was not much in terms of dance from ballet class. And it turns out that one day I won a prize. In my memory it was huge, it was actually a tiny reproduction of a Degas dancer, a painter and I'm not a fan but having absolutely on the wall and she held on to me a while to is hypnotic. This fascinated me without me really knowing why and say I remember having looked for hours. It was for the story. Then, what triggered my vocation, it's just that I arrived in this region for a reason to love with my boyfriend and we wanted to come here so we took to heart. We began to organize exhibitions. Towards the end of 1970-1980 the context has increasingly taken the flowering of the arts, was the whole period of the first decentralization in the visual arts. Moreover, decentralization in the theater took place in 1947, the visual arts had to wait until the early 80s. The first art center was the CAPC in Bordeaux in 1975. Then there was the thrust of the ministry of Jack Lang, who has allowed art to be in phase with the upheavals of the time because we must not forget that at that point we were still in the nineteenth century the level of art in the regions. The situation was quite dramatic! The changes became urgent ... Since the activity was amplified well and it's great!
What saves in moments of discouragement? Friendship?
Friendships yes, Then I come to Filliou: I am a driver of the laboratory project because he believed that friendship was "Eternal Network" to support art and creativity. And when you think about inventions are often the product of trade whether in science or otherwise. This willingness to trade where they feed each other for something to emerge. Friendship is an important factor in creation. This also supports in times of blues. But what always gives me energy, it is actually works themselves. I want to tell me that they carry. I go through times like everyone where I am more or less energetic, and then when I encounter a work right there something is happening around the blaze, halfway between time and space. And is the emotional, intellectual, that it happens? It's so strong and so difficult to describe that in many cases this makes perfect sense to our lives. Of "some things" that happen that make our lives can continue. But I do not mean just the visual arts, I heard two days ago a concert by Joelle Leandre. I am amazed output for long. It was superb. I was very tired and going there since I'm in great shape.
"And why do you want a boat, can we know, this was indeed what the king asked him if he considered himself sufficiently well fitted to the chair of the maid, For me to start looking for the unknown island, "replied the man, What unknown island," asked the king disguised his laughter as he had before him a raving madman, one of those fools who have the fad of navigation and it is important not upset at first, unknown island, the man repeated, Folly, there has more unknown islands, Who told you, O king, there is no more unknown islands, they are all on the cards, On maps there are only islands known, And what is that unknown island that you seek, If I could tell you, it would no longer unknown, Who brought you spoke the king asked, more seriously now, People, In this case, why deniest you to say that it exists, simply because it is impossible that there is not an unknown island ... "
Since I heard between the lines of The Tale of José Saramago, the man asked the king to put a boat in quest for the unknown island, I can not help but compare an artistic director to a browser. The exhibition space becomes a vessel for the field work determines the choice of artists to whom you offer a home but whose work ahead is still a mystery and you hoist the sails in a path that you draw to measure reflection and exchange in the direction of this uncharted island. Is this a fair picture?
Absolutely. It is both extremely exciting and both extremely complicated to manage. There are problems that we are constantly facing. Especially as soon the beginning we focused on the production of works, mostly, and sometimes we have shown existing works. Our main motivation is part of our commitment to supporting a project to create and witness the beginnings of something that does not exist. Must agree not know. And even the head of the artist it is extremely difficult to guess what is now emerging, taking shape. It is difficult to decipher something that is not seen. And indeed it is a great time to experience the onset of a work. It is a great time with him. I think this is a definition of art centers that support the creation of a work to emerge. This is a pivotal moment. I think of Yves Michaud said that "art is learning a foreign language." Each exhibition, each encounter with an artist "is to learn a foreign language." This is also what makes the wealth of art: the discovery of worlds, universes which we know nothing and which we will gradually come. It sounds difficult, especially for the public who must fight against some resistance, but are happy if the resistance interrogate and promote more openness. What matters is the fact in your head. We live in such an environment that is rational to allow himself to lose his footing and decide to swim to the island known as agreeing not really know where we will then become a luxury that is an extraordinary time to take absolutely! I feel that what happens is about the "miracle" at some point, the elements fit together, and something pops up correctly and that's unheard of.
I think that I would call this interview by quoting Gilles Deleuze, who spoke of "constructivism of desire."
Yes, I quite agree with that. I think one of our roles is to create desire ... There
desire conveyed by works, the desire for "construction" of exhibitions etc ... this story seems endless. Yes
quite and works in turn generate in the viewer or other mental constructs as real because they are games. It is the power of art to transform a look. It's huge to turn a light and generate an encounter with unknown territories to resume the story Island. It's absolutely huge, especially in a society as pragmatic as ours. It takes an even greater importance I think. Nearly Everything, appears in an over-rationalization, and to offer the game drift, air bubbles - you can find many words to express this - is the great power of art.
Would you "advice" to give to future curators?
So I'd like to recreate a home with young critics, and invite them to work with young artists and young curators. It is a project that I hope to succeed. I do not know if I have any advice. The first thing is to confront the really works. This is what is fundamental. And sometimes it's difficult at the moment where, you know, contacts often tend to be delayed. Between a report that it is paper or video and experience of work in a space as immaterial whether it is fundamental, I think. It's fun, I will again quote the radio. This time it is a study in the United States who just said that being a curator is one of the fifteen most trades so stressful after this result I wish them "Good luck! (Laughter).
What do you fear?
Ah, but fear is a stimulant! It is a router ... to some extent, certainly, but a switcher anyway!
Interview Friday, November 13, 2009 in Castres, Hall Vivies.
Anais Delmas
