Labyrinthine Variations 12.09.11 → 05.03.12
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WANDER LABYRINTHINE VARIATIONS PRESS PACK 12.09.11 > 05.03.12 centrepompidou-metz.fr PRESS PACK - WANDER, LABYRINTHINE VARIATIONS TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION TO THE EXHIBITION .................................................... 02 2. THE EXHIBITION E I TH LAByRINTH AS ARCHITECTURE ....................................................................... 03 II SpACE / TImE .......................................................................................................... 03 III THE mENTAL LAByRINTH ........................................................................................ 04 IV mETROpOLIS .......................................................................................................... 05 V KINETIC DISLOCATION ............................................................................................ 06 VI CApTIVE .................................................................................................................. 07 VII INITIATION / ENLIgHTENmENT ................................................................................ 08 VIII ART AS LAByRINTH ................................................................................................ 09 3. LIST OF EXHIBITED ARTISTS ..................................................................... 10 4. LINEAgES, LAByRINTHINE DETOURS - WORKS, HISTORICAL AND ARCHAEOLOgICAL ARTEFACTS .................... 12 5.Om C m ISSIONED WORKS ............................................................................. 13 6. EXHIBITION DESIgN ........................................................................................ 15 7. THE LENDERS ....................................................................................................... 16 8. THE CATALOgUE ................................................................................................. 17 9. THE EXHIBITION gAmE: LAByRINT* IN A VALISE (*H) .................................................................. 18 10. CREDITS ................................................................................................................ 19 11. EVENTS AND pERFORmANCES ............................................................ 21 12.p ARTNER VENUES .......................................................................................... 24 13. VISITOR INFORmATION .............................................................................. 25 14.p ATRONS AND pARTNERS ........................................................................ 26 15.p RESS VISUALS .............................................................................................. 27 01 PRESS PACK - WANDER, LABYRINTHINE VARIATIONS 1. INTRODUCTION TO THE EXHIBITION Wander, Labyrinthine Variations follows Beyond its historical references, Wander, Labyrinthine Masterpieces ? as the second major thematic Variations sets out to represent certain contemporary exhibition at the Centre Pompidou-Metz. aesthetic, political and intellectual trends of our era. It addresses the history of forms and ideas by challenging Wander, Labyrinthine Variations is an international a strictly linear model or progressive vision. Instead, it group exhibition, which takes its cue from the multiplies possibilities, draws the visitor into zones of model of the labyrinth, tackling the notions of confusion, multiple choices and lays obstacles to our straying, loss and wandering as well as their apprehending of what is real, with all that this implies various representations in contemporary art. in terms of adventurous speculation and uncertainty. Mystical, archaic forms, labyrinths and mazes are Unfolded on 2,000 square metres across two of the gallery examined here as metaphors. They form complex figures spaces at Centre Pompidou-Metz, the exhibition shows that associate the image of non-linear progression different generations of French and international artists, through bends, curves, repentance and returns… whether alongside major works from the Centre Pompidou, Musée architectural, mental, economic or structural in nature. national d'art moderne in Paris and important international The show itself is organised thematically according collections. There will also be specific commissions by Matt to a sinusoidal principle that follows the detours Mullican, Public Space With a Roof and re-enacted pieces and polysemy of the subject itself, offering a loss of by Gianni Colombo, Gianni Pettena and Julio Le Parc. reference both figuratively as well as formally. It veers from an architectural maze to thoughtful meandering, Wander, Labyrinthine Variations is also a game in the form from global political-economic chaos to disorientated of an enigma - Labyrint* in a Valise (*h) - elaborated contemporary urbanism, from bodily spatial confinement by the independent curator, Jean de Loisy. to maieutics, from exploded narration in cinema or literature to geometric abstraction as an eye-catcher. The exhibition is presented in eight themed parts, which develop the subject from an angle that is both conceptual and sensory. Painting, architecture, penetrable works, sculptures, films, maps and archaeological artefacts offer as many different perspectives on, and immersions in, these curious and surprising worlds. THE CURATORS Hélène Guenin Guillaume Désanges Head of Programming Department Curator, Art Critic, Director of Work Method at the Centre Pompidou-Metz Guillaume Désanges has curated numerous exhibitions Hélène Guenin was appointed Head of programming at in France and internationally. He is the director of Work the Centre Pompidou-Metz in November 2008. Alongside Method, an independent production entity. Between 2001 Laurent Le Bon, she supervises exhibition projects and and 2007, he coordinated artistic activity at parallel programming in the Wendel Auditorium and the Les Laboratoires in Aubervilliers. In 2007-2008 Studio. he was head of programming at La Tôlerie Arts Centre Prior to this, from 2002 to 2008, she worked with Béatrice in Clermont-Ferrand. Since 2009, and until 2011, Josse at the Fonds régional d'art contemporain in Lorraine. he has been guest curator at Le Plateau-Frac Ile de France arts centre in Paris for a series of exhibitions entitled Érudition Concrète. 02 PRESS PACK - WANDER, LABYRINTHINE VARIATIONS 2. THE EXHIBITION Kazimir Malevich I - THE LAByRINTH AS ARCHITECTURE (according to) The labyrinth originates in architecture. Greek mythology Suprematist popularised the concept with the Minotaur, a creature Ornaments, that is half-man, half-bull, imprisoned in a construction 1927-2002 Reconstructed by Poul Pedersen so complex that no one can find their way out. Invented 7 original parts and 11 by Daedalus, the original labyrinth was thus based on reconstructed parts mounted on a plate paradox: how can a rational, methodical structure produce Plaster confusion, disorientation and wandering? Modern-day 27.5 x 45 x 60 cm architects and artists have considered these questions Centre Pompidou, Paris Musée national d’art anew, and imagined principles based on broken lines, moderne / Centre de création twists and turns, tangles and bulges. This part of the industrielle © Adagp, Paris 2011 / exhibition looks at practices which are both programmatic Collection Centre Pompidou, and decorative, and which break with the readability of Dist. RMN / Philippe Migeat straight lines. Kasimir Malevitch Yona Friedman Painter of Black Cross and Suprematist Composition: White on White, two Étude pour la ville major works of the avant-garde abstract movement, Kazimir Malevich turned to geometry and volume in the 1920s, during Suprematism's "white spatiale,1958-1959 phase." In 1926-1927, in Leningrad, Malevich produced a series of models Project which he called Architektons. They include Bêta and Suprematist Photocopy and felt tip pen on paper Ornaments. The way the various plaster shapes align arose from the artist's 29.7 x 42 cm study of the effects of moving a square to different positions to produce Centre Pompidou, Paris rhomboid shapes of various lengths. The cube, considered the "point zero" Collection Musée national of architecture, becomes the minimum unit, the perfect volume, divest d’art moderne / Centre de of all concrete purpose, multiplying and proliferating in space. Henceforth, création industrielle Malevich's three-dimensional work was permeated with the fundamental Gift from the architect, 1992 question of how to include the body in a white and immaterial abstraction © Adagp, Paris 2011 / Collec- of architecture. These two symbols of Malevich's three-dimensional work tion Centre Pompidou, Dist. were reconstructed by Danish artist Poul Pedersen in 1978. RMN / Philippe Migeat Yona Friedman II - SpACE / TImE Architect Yona Friedman was born in Budapest and has lived in Paris since The labyrinth is the archetypal space that generates the late 1950s. Early on in his career, Friedman sought to distance himself from the intensive constructions of the post-war era. He founded the Groupe time. Inside the labyrinth, times feels warped in a d'Architecture Mobile (GEAM), whose "mobile architecture" places the user succession of detours that bring us back to our starting firmly at the centre of the design, in contrast to previous and existing views point. In mathematics, spirals, loops and Möbius strips which, Friedman believed, tended to see users almost as an irrelevance, are the physical embodiment of this paradoxical progress or at best an abstract identity. The "spatial city" utopia, which is illustrated in this series of drawings,