Roland Barthes’ Structure du fait divers (1964) was certainly the inspiration for this exhibition. A “bastard brother of information”, according to the semiologist, the news item helps us to name and identify the aberrant causalities and coincidental relationships that disrupt everyday life. “Faits divers – Une hypothèse en 26 lettres, 5 équations et aucune réponse” (Miscellaneous facts – A hypothesis in 26 letters, 5 equations and no answer) offers a broad and comprehensive artistic panorama, and plays on the principles of enigma and trickery.

The MAC VAL is conducting a real investigation, curated by its director Nicolas Surlapierre, in association with Vincent Lavoie, art historian and full professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal. “Faits divers”, which brings together no fewer than 80 artists of different backgrounds and formal practices, has been awarded the label of national interest (EIN). Through an innovative scenography that provides the keys to deciphering multiple artistic proposals, visitors will be able to decode the workings of the genre. And, as the exhibition’s subtitle announces, “A hypothesis in 26 letters, 5 equations and no answer”, each visitor can give free rein to his or her imagination and free will.

This group show inaugurates the MAC VAL’s 20th anniversary, which will be celebrated throughout 2025.

Exhibition curator: Nicolas Surlapierre
Associate Curator: Vincent Lavoie
Coordinator: Julien Blanpied, assisted by Marzia Ferri

Image: Julien Audebert, Reconstitution du meurtre de Elsie Beckmann, 2004. Tirage lambda, diasec, aluminium / Tirage lambda, diasec, aluminium. 32,7×210cm.
© Julien Audebert, Adagp, Paris 2024. Collection Frac Occitanie Montpellier.

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Art : Concept is delighted to present Geert Goiris’ solo exhibition.

GAM is happy to present the ‘GRASSO’ exhibition dedicated to the first seven issues of the magazine conceived in 2016 by Giuseppe Gabellone and Diego Perrone. The name reflects the unusual size of the magazine, a true oversize, which in order to be read has to be unfolded in a large room as it measures two metres wide by three metres in height.

Thanks to the support of the Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT, it was possible to produce the seventh issue entitled Amedeo Special, the name of a cocktail invented in the 1940s by Amedeo Gandiglio, barman of the historic Turin bar Chatam, and revisited for the occasion by Marco Torre, of Bar Cavour, at the invitation of the two artists.

‘The cocktail stands out in full size in the magazine – wrote the Curator – as the equal and opposite of advertising photography. The exaggerated pop dimensions remain, but the eye-catching glitter and vital energy have vanished. In their place, crepuscular pink, green and brown penumbrae slip into the image, as if shaded by absinthe vapours from old cafés.

Each issue of GRASSO devours a related but different language of the visual arts. Issue 02 captured and embedded the narrative flow of a performance in a mosaic of photos; issue 04 transformed a long interview into a tapestry, enhancing it to the limit of illegibility; issue 06 is filled by a drawing in which the unyielding iconographic and stylistic rules of Japanese manga are intertwined with Judaeo-Christian culture and a certain desire for painting.

GRASSO is beautiful, like paradoxical projects, like all things that are enormous and fragile: a giant with feet of paper.’

The exhibition is part of the collecting commitment that GAM and Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT have been making with regard to artists’ books and magazines since 2017 with the establishment of the Fondo Giorgio Maffei.

On the evening of the opening, it will be possible to taste the cocktail prepared by Head Bartender Marco Torre, from 6 pm to 8 pm.

GRASSO #7: a project by Giuseppe Gabellone and Diego Perrone, curated by Elena Volpato, with the artistic direction of Studio Fludd, photos by Massimo Bianchi, and with the support of the Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT and the GAM of Turin.

Consultancy from Corrado Beldì, case designed by Dallas, printed by Artistica Savigliano and coordinated by Federica Panelli.
With thanks also to Bar Cavour, Turin and Marco Torre.

Curated by di Elena Volpato
Floor -1, Video Library / Media Collection

Image: Issue 07 – Amedeo Special, November 2024

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Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea is delighted to announce Mutual Aid – Art in collaboration with nature, a major exhibition dedicated to sustainability curated by Francesco Manacorda and Marianna Vecellio, which opens to the public on Thursday 31 October 2024 until Sunday 23 March 2025.
 
The exhibition explores the creative collaboration between humans and the non-human world by gathering a selection of artists who have addressed the interdependence between humans and nature from the 1960s to today.
 
The show profiles different phases of artistic reflection on ecology, culminating in concerns around the current climate crisis and the theoretical developments which put into question the centrality of man in the natural system. The project focuses around the act of sharing the creative process between artists and natural elements (animal, vegetable and inorganic), interpreted by the works of artists such as Maria Thereza Alves, Michel Blazy, Bianca Bondi & Guillaume Bouisset, Caretto/Spagna, Agnes Denes, Hubert Duprat, Henrik Håkansson, Tamara Henderson, Aki Inomata, Renato Leotta, Nicholas Mangan, Yannis Maniatakos, Nour Mobarak, Precious Okoyomon, Giuseppe Penone, Tomás Saraceno, Robert Smithson, Vivian Suter and Natsuko Uchino.

The title of the exhibition is inspired by the concept of mutual support proposed by Russian philosopher and zoologist Piotr Kropotkin (1842-1921) in his book Mutual Aid – A Factor of Evolution, published at the beginning of the last century. Kropotkin claims that the survival of species does not only benefit from competition, as Charles Darwin argued; on the contrary he demonstrates that, when a system has few resources and is unstable, survival is more likely if the elements in play collaborate and share a common plan. This makes ‘mutual aid’ a key factor in evolution, particularly in times of crisis. This attitude is highlighted in the exhibition by a selection of works of art started by humans but ‘finished by nature’ or co-created thanks to the contribution of non-human elements and agents.
 
Mutual Aid – Art in collaboration with nature invites us to reconsider the validity of the separation between nature and culture, reinterpreting them instead as collaborating elements called upon to support and nourish each other. The exhibition proposes to the public an ecosystemic vision and an innovative and urgent approach to major environmental issues, based on coexistence, sharing and the value of multi-species collective creativity and planning.

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Two group exhibitions from the Frac des Pays de la Loire collection.

A powerful vector of emotions and alliances across centuries and cultures, the kiss changes its meaning according to era and context. Through the filter of the kiss, a plural vision of the body, of desire, of ritual, of courtship or even of care is summoned up. But what about younger generations? In a post-covid world, can we still kiss? What is the durability and topicality of this gesture, whose representation seems as old as art itself?

Taking as its starting point the collection of the Fonds régional d’art contemporain, augmented by loans and previously unseen productions, this exhibition brings together over thirty French and international artists. Sur tes lèvres traces an intimate or societal journey through films, photographs, installations, performances and poetry from the 70s to the present day.

Image: Jean-Michel Sanejouand, Le baiser, 2000 (Sculptures-Peintures). Acrylique sur toile / Acrylic on canvas, 130 x 167 cm. Courtesy the Artist Estate and Art : Concept, Paris.

Is this title a nominal proposition, which one imagines could constitute a kind of description of what is, if not any exhibition, at least this one, specifically? A place capable of being open to the breath of the winds, yet welcoming to those who come to visit it, an exploded but engaging house, gracious and hospitable? Or should we read this title as a paradoxical injunction, an almost brutal, pocket philosophical precept, urging us to free ourselves from what encloses us? Wouldn’t it be more simply a gentle, vibrant invitation to be whispered or sung over and over again, a mini-poem of just four feet, which manages to create a musicality through the subtle play of repetition, and slight variation, which phonetically brings together the syllables [mœʁ]” and [myʁ]?

If the title of this exhibition by Vidya Gastaldon can teach us anything about her work, it’s that here, as elsewhere, there’s no need to choose between different interpretations, that they’re all valid at the same time, and that the serpentine forms of the question mark are always better than that little black hole that is the dot. Demeure sans murs is thus an invitation, an injunction and a description, a simple and beautiful title, perfectly open, from which it becomes possible to unfold and understand some of the laws that govern this highly visual and spiritually rich work.

Excerpt from the tex by Jill Gasparina

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10/10 : 10 artists for 10 designs on Sèvres porcelain. Sèvres showroom.

With Ulla von Brandenburg, Philippe Cognée, Lionel Estève, Monique Frydman, Fabrice Hyber, Myriam Mechita, Françoise Pétrovitch, Nathalie Talec, Barthélémy Toguo, Thu-Van Tran

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