Innholdsfortegnelse for No.30 i L'Officiel Art

“Counterpoint” is the title by which Gérard Traquandi has chosen to federate his arrangement of the works. “Counterpoint is a musical term. The idea implies two pieces of music that are independent of each other and yet create a harmony. That’s what I wanted to do with the collection,” the artist indicates. His free gaze has thus been influenced the works that he has rearranged in a manner that erases any classification in favor of a cerebral and sensitive approach. “The paintings have no other meaning than themselves”: Traquandi perfectly embodies here this definition of concrete art. He has enriched the ensemble with some of his drawings, paintings, ceramics and photographs. Light, color, pattern, material come into resonance, with works by Josef Albers, Jean-Pierre Bertrand, Eduardo Chillida, Herman de vries,…

JAC LEIRNER: 2019 WOLFGANG-HAHN PRIZE, THE MUSEUM LUDWIG IN COLOGNE, GERMANY. YILMAZ DZIEWIOR: Tell me about you family background and your beginnings in the arts. You mentioned to me that your parents Adolpho and Fúlvia Leirner collected conceptual geometric abstract art from Latin American from the 1940s through 1960s like Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Clark. One of your great aunts, two aunts, one oncle and one sister of yours are artists. Often as a young person one revolts against the family and wants to do something completly else then they do. How was it in your life? Was it always clear for you that you would become an artists? What were the professions of your parents and when did you decide to become an artist? JAC LEIRNER: To become an…

“GEUMHYUNG JEONG: HOMEMADE RC TOY,” KUNSTHALLE BASEL, BASEL, CH. MAY 3 — AUGUST 11. ELENA FILIPOVIC: You were trained in dance and theatre, and from your very first performances to the present, you have been consistently exploring the relationship between your living, fleshly self and inanimate things. Still, your newest project, “Homemade RC Toy,” is a departure for you in some ways. Can you say something about the connections between your previous pieces and this one? GEUMHYUNG JEONG: Between them, there is a kind of progression. In my earliest performance, 7ways (2009), I was interested in transforming my body into different characters, putting a fake head or mask on different parts of my body, like one of my feet or arms. Later, I started to attach those heads onto other…

L’OFFICIEL ART: You studied at the Beaux-Arts de Paris. What did you take away from your time there? LAURENT GRASSO: I chose Beaux-Arts de Paris because there were two specific features that appealed to me: the international exchange program, and the fact that active artists dedicate a part of their time to the school. This meant you had direct contract with artists on a weekly basis, and these are artists whose work we could admire and see in galleries or museums. It gave us insight into an artistic career as a whole. The course was quite long, as it lasted five years, but it enabled my mind to wander and perform in-depth research for what would then form the matrix for my work. I took away the notion of exploring…

“BAUHAUS UND DIE FOTOGRAFIE – ZUM NEUEN SEHEN IN DER GEGENWARTSKUNST,” MUSEUM FÜR FOTOGRAFIE, BERLIN, TILL AUGUST 25. “BAUHAUS UND DIE FOTOGRAFIE – ZUM NEUEN SEHEN IN DER GEGENWARTSKUNST,” KUNSTHALLE DARMSTADT, SEPTEMBER 26, 2019 TO JANUARY 5, 2020. “FIRE: FLASHES TO ASHES IN BRITISH ART 1692-2019,” RWA BRISTOL, JUNE 15-SEPTEMBER 1. “FLY ME TO THE MOON, 50 JAHRE MONDLANDUNG,” KUNSTHAUS ZURICH, ZURICH, TILL JUNE 30. “FLY ME TO THE MOON, 50 JAHRE MONDLANDUNG,” MUSEUM DER MODERNE SALZBURG / MÖNCHSBERG, JULY 20 TO NOVEMBER 3. “SOCCER AND THE ARAB WORLD,” INSTITUT DU MONDE ARABE, PARIS, TILL JULY 21. “HEY PSYCHO!” INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS AND REPRESENTATION, VENICE, TILL NOVEMBER 24. “TALKING HEADS - ZEITGENÖSSISCHE DIALOGE MIT F.X. MESSERSCHMIDT,” 21ER HAUS BELVEDERE, VIENNA, TILL AUGUST 18.…

L’OFFICIEL ART: Your work uses different media, from site-specific performance pieces to video art. On your German Wikipedia page, it says you relate to Beuys’s concept of social sculpture, the aim of which is to transform society. What do you make of that? ARIN RUNGJANG: I’m actually friends on facebook with the guy who wrote the page. He contacted me to ask whether that was correct. I don’t mind. But I wouldn’t put a label on my work. Art serves its own purpose, even before something is shown in an exhibition, or is described in a magazine. That’s where language and knowledge production come into play. During your formative years, did you draw inspiration from particular directions in art? Thailand was initially an agricultural country. Its entire development has to…

ANNABELLE TÉNÈZE: Your retrospective for Les Abattoirs in Toulouse opens in September. How does it feel to show your work in France after living there from 1959 to 1962? Many people don’t know that your first works, which seem so “American”, were actually created in Europe. PETER SAUL: It feels just fine to show in France. To me Art Appreciation is an individual response, nothing to do with nationality. I do remember quite well sitting in the Dome café and trying to think of American imagery to put in my pictures, like Donald Duck and the electric chair and so on, after I figured out that that was going to be a big part of my art style. That would be later, in 1958. Despite having always refused to be…

“Audi Talents is a rather exceptional program since its purpose is to reward three projects per year that combine different categories: film, installation... These projects require a complex implementation, so the program develops around projects of significant scope, for which financial support and production are essential. A budget of 70,000 euros is allocated to each artist, which allows for a large production which we accompany over the period of one year, at the end of which there is an exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo in order to present the achievements of the previous year’s three winners. The 2019 edition is entitled ‘alt + R, Alternative Reality’ because the projects suggest a sort of alternate version of the present world. Gregory Chatonsky’s project consists in entrusting all the means to…

“JENNY HOLZER: THING INDESCRIBABLE,” GUGGENHEIM BILBAO, SPAIN, TILL SEPTEMBER 9. JETHRO TURNER: Where is the text on the sign in “Ram” from? JENNY HOLZER: These are poems from Anna Swir, from Building the Barricade, from her experiences in the siege of Warsaw. It took her decades to be able to return to that time, not surprisingly, given the extent of the trauma. She was at one stage lined up on a wall because the National Socialists wanted her to think she was going to die. Or maybe they were trying to decide whether she should because she’d been in the Resistance. She’s not a trifling poet! To be able to do it, to withstand it, and then write so clearly about it and not in a gratuitously sensational way—it’s both…

The Swiss luxury watchmaker Audemars Piguet is defined by its special dedication to artistic endeavors in the visual arts and design. Participating since 2012 in ARCOmadrid (most notably through the annual ARCOmadrid Audemars Piguet Prize), the House also supports Art Basel (since 2013) and the Berlin Gallery Weekend (since 2014). Moreover, through its Art Commission (inaugurated in 2014), the Audemars Piguet calls upon the expertise of renowned figures from the international art world to name an artist who will then be supported through the creation of a work of art. With its perfect understanding of the wiles of time, the House brings together a team of watchmakers that over the generations has made everlasting timepieces, bringing together patrimony and extreme modernity. Symbols of savoir-faire and innovation, these timepieces accompany the…

“CAO FE, HX,” CENTRE POMPIDOU IN PARIS, TILL AUGUST 26. “Some people say I’m a sociologist,” Cao Fei says. Born in 1978, Cao Fei (pronounced Tsao Fay) has a watchful eye on people and the world around them. Ever since her first video Imbalance 257 made in 1999, the Guangzhou native and daughter of an accomplished sculptor has set out in search of discovering communities and their ecosystems. In 2004, she filmed COSplayers, which shines the light on young people who dress up as and play the role of video-game characters. For i.Mirror (2007) and RMB City (2007-2011), she explored the virtual world of Second Life. She recorded the experiences of her avatar and artistic alter ego, China Tracy, and built a pixelated city to explore the boundaries between the…

L’OFFICIEL ART: In 2012 at the age of twenty-six, your work was shown at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (Turin). This was followed in 2017 by being featured at the Lyon Biennale and African Photography Encounters. Now thirty-two, you’re one of the most sought-after young artists today. How would you describe your short yet intense career so far? JULIEN CREUZET: Viewing artists through the lens of age is such a French trope. If we take a look at the art scene in America, South Africa or Asia, the question of age isn’t thought of in these ways. It’s attached to another reality: that of a professional who creates work in his field of choice. To think of yourself as a young or emerging artist is a type of pigeonholing or…

“DYSFUNCTIONAL,” GALLERIA GIORGIO FRANCHETTI ALLA, CA’ D’ORO, VENICE, MAY 8 TO NOVEMBER 24. “TRANS WORLD,” NICODIM GALLERY LOS ANGELES, JUNE 8 TO AUGUST 10. “TRANS WORLD,” GALLERIA NICODIM, BUCHAREST, JUNE 15 TO AUGUST 17. “Art is a dialogue,” Morgane Tschiember says. Tschiember likes spontaneous encounters. They inspire her. The unexpected combination of materials in her sculptures and installations—glass and concrete for “Bubbles,” wood for “Honey Honey,” ceramic and rope for “Polystrene, Shibari & Co.,” foam and wax for “Monochrome”—are as much experiments as they are ways of opening up a new world of possibilities. With each artwork, she examines the very essence of the materials, their density, their structure, and defies their physical limitations. For “Dust Devil,” she created bubbles of blown glass mixed with dust, resulting in forms that…

“DEBORAH REMINGTON AND DAVINA SEMO,” PARTS & LABOR, BEACON, NY. JULY 1 - SEPTEMBER 29. “DEBORAH REMINGTON. THE BAY AREA YEARS, 1949-1965,” DI ROSA CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, NAPA, CA. APRIL 3 - SEPTEMBER 6, 2020. Best known for her abstract paintings with interlocking machine-like shapes, intense color juxtapositions and ambiguous luminosity, Deborah Remington (b. Haddonfield, NJ, 1930, d. 2010) began her artistic career as the abstract expressionist movement was starting to wane. Although her painting style eventually evolved toward a somewhat austere and well-disciplined combination of illusionism and hard-edge minimalism, her rebellious nature was characteristic of the AbEx generation. As a student at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco in 1954, she was one of the co-founders of the first Beat gallery, known as Six Gallery,…

“ETTORE SOTTSASS AND THE SOCIAL FACTORY” AT ICA MIAMI. TILL OCTOBER. “If something saves us, it will be beauty.” Thus theorized Ettore Sottsass in his 2001 writings. For Sottsass, aesthetics was a sort of ethical and moral commitment—the political tool for creating a present that would be built around man and his needs. It matters little, then, that they were conceived as objects of design, destined to improve our daily life with their dual aesthetic and functional value; or as architectures, created to understand and interpret society. A painter, photographer, designer and sculptor, Sottsass loved being called “Architect”. And yet, architecture never dominated other disciplines in his work, which were all explored equally in a vision that never created distinctions between them, except with regard to technique. All of them,…

EXHIBITION “FUTURES OF LOVE”, JUNE 21– OCTOBER 20 MAGASINS GÉNÉRAUX, 1, RUE DE L’ANCIEN CANAL, PANTIN – GRAND PARIS, FRANCE CURATED BY ANNA LABOUZE & KEIMIS HENNI. As early as 2008, less than fifteen years after its creation in 1994, the usually implacable Creative Review called BETC (Babinet, Erra, Tong Cuong) “also an ad agency”, when the last issue of this British magazine (July 2018) placed Rémi Babinet in its annual ranking of Top 50 creative leaders. Two years earlier, he was named by Forbes magazineas one of the top ten creative directors in history. Unmistakably, the revolutionary project of the Magasins généraux was due to him. Relaxed, with a barely-sketched smile, and concentrated gaze combined with the gravity which is constitutive of his personality, Rémi Babinet greets the visitor…

On the mission, stakes and new dynamics of the Méca. CLAIRE JACQUET: The Méca building brings together three entities that cover almost all the disciplines of contemporary creation: the visual and plastic arts at Frac; the book and cinema at the Alca; and live performance at the Oara. The coexistence of these different departments allows for a porosity between disciplines, and possibly for collaborations between creators. It’s our task to create the conditions of these meetings. Everyone is thus the master of his or her own field, with specific projects, but which are also inscribed in an exchange of intersecting projects, if the artists manifest this desire. On the choice of the title of the inaugural exhibition, “Il est une fois dans l’Ouest” (“Once upon a time in the West”).…

L’OFFICIEL ART: As part of the “Viva Leonardo” homage paid by the Centre-Val de Loire region to Leonardo da Vinci for the 500th anniversary of his death, you have asked around thirty French artists to come show their work at the château du Rivau: how did this project emerge? PATRICIA LAIGNEAU: 1519 is indeed symbolic of the artistic, cultural and scientific effervescence of the history of the Loire valley, with the death of Leonardo da Vinci. In the image of this era, rich in pictorial inventions and research, it seemed to me that the artists that I had selected had the audacity and capacity to prolong da Vinci’s questionings. The exhibition thus begins a dialogue, one full of astonishment and curiosity, between history and creation, the present and the future.…

“URS FISCHER: ERROR”, UNTIL OCTOBER 1, THE BRANT FOUNDATION, NEW YORK. LOLA KRAMER : Before we get into “Urs Fischer: Error”, I thought we could talk about what isn’t included. Last year, you started a collaborative project with Spencer Sweeney and others, called Headz, that explored improvisation through jazz and drawing. It took place in a loft in Chinatown and developed over a year. Anyone who knew about it could come. I feel that this was a significant project for you, but by its very nature, it slips under the radar. Can you tell me about this? URS FISHER : We didn’t advertise much to anybody. We just told a few people. It was only 10, 20 people [at first]. Then neighbors started trickling in, and neighborhood kids. The musicians…

SELECTED 2019 GROUP SHOWS: “FANTASY,” THE ANDY WARHOL MUSEUM, PITTSBURGH, USA. “WORLD RECEIVERS,” ZABLUDOWICZ COLLECTION, LONDON. L’OFFICIEL ART: What’s this work we’re surrounded by? CHLOE WISE: This is for my show “Not That We Don’t,” which is in London at Almine Rech Gallery. These are the largest paintings that I’ve done to date. It’s different than my previous works in that it features multiple people in group portraits, whereas before I’ve focused on individuals. The colors and the compositional strategy are completely different for me as an artist. Who are these people in your paintings? I have a tendency to cast multiple people at once. I create a video where a group of people will be lit up with a wind machine, almost like their posing for an infomercial. I…

L’OFFICIEL ART: You were born in Glasgow, where you studied at the Glasgow School of Art, before you completed your training at the Slade School of Fine Art in London—two places with strong reputations where you experimented with sculpture, film, and video. How did your artistic side get first expressed? DOUGLAS GORDON: I suppose that when a teacher wrote in my report card when I was ten that “Douglas should be encouraged at art, whenever any opportunity presents itself,” my parents took that statement at face value. So when opportunity knocked, they encouraged me, and suddenly the rest of life just happened. Forty-something years later I’m still looking for opportunities… In 1993, when you were twenty-six, you presented your first significant piece, “24 Hour Psycho,” which takes Hitchcock’s film and…

L’OFFICIEL ART: How was it to be thrown into the art world while you were still a film student? TONY GUM: I entered the art world quite young. Everything happened spontaneously. I believe that there is a divine power that is intervening. I don’t stand here solely on the foundation of my own work but as a result of my parents and their efforts, and the community that I’m from, and all of them just pushing me to ensure that a young black girl is doing great! Yo u a r e c u r r e n t l y h e r e a t t h e Fountainhead Residency in Miami. Is Miami a good place for art? Throughout these past few weeks being at the Fountainhead…

SFEIR-SEMLER GALLERY “ROBERT BARRY • IVAN KOŽARIC”, HAMBURG, GERMANY, APRIL 5 - JULY 24. “MOUNIRA AL SOLH: THE MOTHER OF DAVID AND GOLIATH”, BEIRUT, LEBANON MAY 2 - AUGUST 10. RAHEL AIMA: Could you tell me about your early years, in broad strokes? ANDRÉE SFEIR-SEMLER: I grew up in Beirut and studied at the American University of Beirut. I studied fine arts and filmmaking and received a Fulbright Scholarship, in addition to getting accepted into UCLA. In the meantime, however, I met a man who I fell in love with and applied for a DAAD scholarship as well. In the end I decided to go to Germany on a DAAD instead. I studied filmmaking in Munich, which I did not like, and ended up switching to art history. I changed universities…

KATHY-ACKER, FROM MAY 1 TO AUGUST 4, ICA, LONDON. HTTPS://WWW.ICA.ART/ EXHIBITIONS/I-I-I-I-I-I-I- The writer’s body is what fascinates first. Before going further and entering the body of her writing, it is perhaps in this way that we first enter “into” Kathy Acker: by the physical power of a woman with short or shaved hair, sometimes dyed platinum, with taut muscles and the sort of abundant tattoos one sees on bikers, in reality shows or gyms. But in the culture of bodybuilding, on which Kathy Acker has written, language is used as little as possible, if at all. Breaths and dumbbell repetitions are counted, but speech is not used: it is a “geography of the non-verbal” (Bodies of Work, 1997). Kathy Acker, however, speaks. She reads her texts aloud. She makes the…