samedi dimanche lundi mercredi jeudi vendredi samedi dimanche 27 28 29 1 2 3 4 5 27 mardi lundi 30 6 SEPTEMBER mardi samedi dimanche lundi jeudi dimanche 7 11 12 13 16 19 30 mercredi mardi vendredi lundi 8 14 17 20 NOVEMBER jeudi vendredi mercredi samedi mardi 9 10 15 18 21 2014 mercredi vendredi samedi lundi mardi jeudi vendredi samedi Les Ateliers 22 24 25 27 28 30 31 1 jeudi dimanche mercredi dimanche de Rennes 23 26 29 2 lundi jeudi vendredi lundi jeudi vendredi 3 6 7 10 13 14 mardi mercredi samedi dimanche mardi samedi 4 5 8 9 11 15 Biennale d’art mercredi dimanche 12 16 contemporain lundi mardi mercredi vendredi samedi dimanche lundi HALLE DE LA COURROUZE 17 18 19 21 22 23 24 MUSÉE DES BEAUX-ARTS DE RENNES jeudi mardi FRAC BRETAGNE 20 25 mercredi jeudi vendredi samedi dimanche 40mcube • Le Cabinet du livre d’artiste 26 27 28 29 30 La Criée centre d’art contemporain Phakt Centre Culturel Colombier Passerelle (Brest) • Le Quartier (Quimper) www.lesateliersderennes.fr Press kit Contents Foreword by Bruno Caron · 4 01 Les Ateliers de Rennes · 5 > The 4th edition · 6 02 Zoë Gray’s curatorial project: PLAY TIME · 7 > An introduction by the curator · 8 > 3 venues for 3 group exhibitions · 9 > Artistic choices · 10 > The artists of the biennale · 11, 12 03 PLAY TIME at the Halle de la Courrouze The Playground · 13 04 PLAY TIME at the Museum of Fine Arts of Rennes The Right to Laziness · 19 05 PLAY TIME at the Frac Bretagne Work as Play, Art as Thought · 25 PLAY TIME - Image captions · 33, 34 06 Associated exhibitions · 35 > 40mcube · 37 > Le Cabinet du livre d’artiste · 38 > La Criée centre d’art contemporain · 39 > Phakt Centre Culturel Colombier · 40 > Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain (Brest) · 41 > Le Quartier Centre d’art contemporain (Quimper) · 42 2 07 Programme of events · 43 08 Collaborations · 49 > EESAB, partner school of the biennale · 49 > The biennale OFF · 50 09 Outreach · 51 10 Organisation · 53 > Organisation: Art Norac / Steering committee · 53 > Curator: Zoë Gray · 54 > Implementation: le troisième pôle · 54 11 Practical Information · 55 > Information · 55 > Exhibition venues / Entry prices · 56 > Contacts and team · 57 > Associated exhibitions · 58 > Useful info on Rennes · 59 12 Funders and partners · 60 3 Foreword by Bruno Caron 2014, Games on the agenda Winter Olympic Games, World Cup, Ateliers de Rennes… The 4th edition of Les Ateliers de Rennes - contemporary art biennale, titled PLAY TIME, offers you an opportunity for reflection and exchange on the subjects of work and play. Zoë Gray, the audacious curator of this edition, invites you to come and discover the way artists view work, leisure, and play. Our desire to make contemporary art, the art of our times, accessible to a broad audience on a regional and national level should be achieved with this engaging exhibition, conceived as a both playground and a workspace. The artists and works selected by Zoë Gray will doubtless have an effect upon us, as long as we are willing to play along. Les Ateliers de Rennes eagerly await your participation in this biennale, or, in the words of Zoë, “this brief moment during which extraordinary things are possible.” The ball is in your court! - Bruno Caron President of Art Norac (Presentation of Art Norac page 53) 4 Les Ateliers 01 de Rennes The first biennale dedicated to exploring the relations between art and the economy, a field rich with creative possibilities, Les Ateliers de Rennes offers the opportunity for artists to examine essential subjects such as work and the value we assign to it. Since 2008, the non-profit association Art Norac has organized the contemporary art biennale Les Ateliers de Rennes (literally Rennes’ Workshops), an event dedicated to exploring the connections between contemporary art and enterprise. Founded in 2005, Art Norac is the wing of the Norac Consortium (a group of fifteen food-processing companies) dedicated to artistic patronage. Its aim is to promote and support contemporary artistic creation and make it accessible to all. The biennale is funded in partnership with regional and local public authorities (Rennes City and Urban Community, the Department of Ille-et- Villaine, the Region of Brittany) and the French Ministry of Arts, Culture and Communication. The biennale’s total budget is 1,9 million euros. Les Ateliers de Rennes has become a major date in the French cultural landscape. The objective of the fourth edition is to continue to work together with local and regional partners, while also expanding the outreach of the event on an international level to become a key moment in the European art calendar. Les Ateliers de Rennes is the only European artistic event to devote itself to a reflection on the connections between art and the economy. For each edition, a guest curator is invited to define a thematic with this cross-disciplinary approach, and to develop a programme of exhibitions, projects, and events that explore the subject. The previous editions (2008, 2010 and 2012) have examined the thematic in three different ways: the curator Raphaële Jeune worked in 2008 with about 60 artists under the heading Valeurs croisées (Crossed Values) on the concept of value creation; then in 2010 with about 50 artists on Ce qui vient (That which is coming), on the concepts of innovation, invention and creation. In 2012, the curator Anne Bonnin – under the heading Les Prairies (The Prairies) – focused with around 60 artists on the figure of the pioneer. Art Norac selected last summer the project of Zoë Gray (independent curator, based in Brussels): PLAY TIME. Her exhibition invites some 50 artists to think about the notions of work, play and leisure. Les Ateliers 01 de Rennes The 4th edition Dates: 27 September - 30 November 2014 Curator: Zoë Gray Organisation: Art Norac Production / communication / outreach: le troisième pôle The fourth edition of Les Ateliers de Rennes - contemporary art biennale, is a sequence of three international group exhibitions that questions our way of working and playing together. Titled PLAY TIME, these exhibitions present emerging and renowned artists, existing works and new productions. They take place in established arts venues in the city of Rennes (Museum of Fine Arts of Rennes, Frac Bretagne) and in a former artillery warehouse in an area currently undergoing extensive transformation, the Halle de la Courrouze. The biennale additionally brings together a network of arts venues and partners in Rennes and across Brittany: 40mcube; le Cabinet du livre d’artiste; La Criée centre d’art contemporain; Phakt Centre Culturel Colombier (all in Rennes); Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain in Brest and Le Quartier Centre d’art contemporain in Quimper. Each of these venues presents solo exhibitions of artists who also feature in the group shows of PLAY TIME. Appropriating the title of Jacques Tati’s most famous commercial flop, the critically revered film Playtime (1967), the exhibition takes a Hulotesque stroll through the field of contemporary artistic practice. The biennale PLAY TIME treats the exhibition as simultaneously a playground and a space of work. A programme of events, gatherings, discussions, and performances animate the duration of the biennale, making it an important moment for contemporary art in Brittany this autumn. 6 Zoë Gray’s curatorial project: 02 PLAY TIME “Play cannot be denied. You can deny, if you like, nearly all abstractions: justice, beauty, truth, goodness, mind, God. You can deny seriousness, but not play. […] Genuine, pure play is one of the main bases of civilization.” - Johan Huizinga, Homo ludens (1951) “However powerful our technology and complex our corporations, the most remarkable feature of the modern working world may in the end be internal, consisting in an aspect of our mentalities: in the widely held belief that our work should make us happy. All societies have had work at their centre; ours is the first to sug- gest that it could be something much more than a punishment or penance. Ours is the first to imply that we should seek to work even in the absence of a financial imperative. Our choice of occupation is held to define our identity to the extent that the most insistent question we ask of new acquaintances is not where they come from or who their parents were but what they do, the assumption being that the route to meaningful existence must invariable pass through the gate of remunerative employment.” - Alain de Botton, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2010) “Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect experience if only one had a coloured pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling.” - G.K. Chesterton On Lying in Bed (1909) Zoë Gray’s curatorial project: 02 PLAY TIME An introduction by the curator In founding Les Ateliers de Rennes, Art Norac’s wish was to explore the “convergences, divergences and interrelations between art and business.” This focus is close to my own areas of curatorial research of recent years, which has explored notions of production, manufacture (industrial, artisanal and artistic) and the value of different types of work. For this 4th edition of Les Ateliers de Rennes, I am continuing to pursue this line of enquiry, while also attempting to propose an alternative to the widespread glorification of work today as the ultimate form of self-validation. In doing so, I am curious to explore notions such as play, indolence or sloth, activities contradictory to the dominant focus on productivity and efficiency. One of my starting questions was: What is play – is it the flipside of work, or are they one and the same thing? Today, whenever I ask people what they are doing, they always reply: “working.” But is this true? Are we working, or are we actually playing? We would never admit to the latter, because playing – beyond childhood – has an entirely negative connotation.