(No)Time
A film by Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz, 2020, 19 min.
Choreography/Performance : Julie Cunningham, Werner Hirsch, Joy Alpuerto Ritter, Aaliyah Thanisha
Coproduction :Jindřich Chalupecký Society, Service des affaires culturelles du canton de Vaud, IFFR Rotterdam, Seoul Mediacity Biennale, le Frac Bretagne et le CA2M Madrid
(No)Time
“Can movements simultaneously connect to utopian aspiration and political despair? At a moment when we are increasingly confronted with right-wing conservatism, it seems urgent to disrupt progressive conceptions of time and create a stage for something beyond: what will a minoritarian mode of temporality look like ?
Four performers seem to be rehearsing for a queer time: extreme slowness, being out of synch, changes of rhythms, stillness and breaks are working on escape routes, refusing the deadening beats of labor and the state-sponsored hopeless tacts of being. The performers employ and often deliberately mix a range of dance elements inspired by hip-hop, dancehall, (post-)modern dance and drag performance. Even though they noticeably differ in their styles, they connect through sudden similarities, haunting movements, and body memories, producing and shifting their points of contact.
While the film’s end is also its beginning, the sequence of scenes offers an unpredictable experience of time, not least by raising doubt about how far slowness and ruptures are carried out by the performing bodies or by digital means.” Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz
THE ARTISTS
Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz work together in Berlin since 2007. They produce films, installations and sculptures with a strong connection to performance, choreographing the tension between narration and abstraction, visibility and opacity. Their performers are choreographers, artists and musicians, with whom they are having a long-term conversation about the conditions of performance and the violent history of the gaze, but also about companionship, glamour and resistance.
Their works have been recently presented at n.b.k, Berlin (2020), at Centre Culturel Suisse, Paris (2018), at the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston – USA (2017). They also have represented Switzerland at the 58th Venice Art Biennale (2019).
Images : Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz, (No)Time (screenshot), 2020. Photo credit : Aurélien Mole
Go ghost!
Go Ghost!
Through the use of DIY aesthetics and an often off-the-cuff approach full of humor and self-irony, Finizio has been developing a body of work rooted in the observation of incidents and phenomena that revolve around questions of exchange, value and cultural meaning. His installations operate as both events and models. They entangle the depiction of scripted spaces of commerce, habitat, display, construction, archive and work, with a model-like quality that actively speculates on the uses, statuses, and sentiments that these spaces perform.
As an introduction to his solo exhibition at Frac Bretagne, the artist has decided to speak. Poetic in form, close to slam in its sounds, his text below is intended to both take a position and begin a narrative.
An animal tossed into an empty space, a field or cage
Will quickly make for the corner.
A space, empty to start.
Cold and dark.
A switch discretely niched
To play master of night and day.
On-off. Cool white. Big blank.
w O mb
r OO m
t O mb
All share the same vowel
An O-pening of sorts
Though pronounced the same
only once does that “O” O-ccur twice.
Implying perhaps a tO and frO That you may cOme and gO As you please
A good room has its ins and outs
“Every day I push the broom across the room to make some room for the next day.”
A space is more than its interplay of walls windows and doors.
A space becomes what it is according to what you put inside it, how you arrange those things and their respective qualities.
As Martin Kippenberger beautifully demonstrated with “The happy end of Kafka’s America”
As is visible in my work “How I went In and out of Business for seven Days and Seven Nights”
I’m interested in spaces that take shape from within rather than above.
Space exploration starts at your fingertips.
I’m interested in space as plural and mobile. It happens. Is and was.
I’m looking for the point or moment where one thing becomes several.
Contours become blurred, logic fuzzy
Oscillate IS the steady state. Shapes shift.
Identity takes a hit…
(Put a dent in your “I” !)
The linguistic tyranny of commodities teaches us that a table is a table is maybe a dinner table but is certainly not a desk or workbench.
A table is also a bed, a shelter, a boat, a shield, a table-au
This was the idea behind the title of my exhibition ARKPARKCRAFTRAFTCLINICLUBPUB at MOBY, Bat Yam, Israel
Where the vessel that is the museum building became all those spaces at once.
Names must be tossed aside to feel things fresh
Language needs thickening : put the putty back in poettry (sic).
How sad for a chair to be reduced to a set of logocentric representations.
When we could think things affects such as “sit ass silent softly”
“Jam Econo” as the Minutemen put it.
Make with Hammers for Hands. An art of heart and parts.
Oppose the all-thumbs to the opposable thumb.
Dumb down enjoy the low life and help things help themselves.
Lo-fi semper fi : sea shells can do cell phones.
Low-res rapid proto leaves the imagination free to ponder both the best and the worst.
Finishing is farther than I need to go.
Walk shoestring budgets.
Arrange, rearrange disrupt and derange.
GO GHOST !!!
Ghosts don’t make things. They move things.
They rattle windows and walls, sling furniture and hurl objects, shake the house and all inside…
They trigger encounters and collisions, squat bodies like thieves do cars for joyrides…take possession of them so to speak – ventriloquy.
My economy is the stand-up comic’s.
A glass of water and a microphone, maybe a stool for when the glass gets tired.
The stand-up comic’s condition is not unlike that of the early Christian hermit: each works his schtick spartan and lonely.
Bunuel tapped into this with Simon of the Desert
Overhead is minimal and storage isn’t an issue.
A stand up economy.
I remember a teacher back in art school scolding us for our one-liners,
As if each time we’d committed a shamefully stupid crime.
But if your one liners are good and you can line a few up, you start to have material.
And maybe in those few lines you can say more than your average American author in a six hundred page book.
THE ARTIST
Francesco Finizio (1967, United States), lives and works in Plouzané.
“Finizio’s work is dictated by the overwhelming material saturation surrounding us. With simple yet sophisticated tools, he utilizes the resources available to him. By employing concrete and everyday means, Finizio’s ongoing research into the languages and gestures of consumerism and mass communications, produce new and poignant articulations of our economic, cultural, social, political and artistic condition.” Joshua Simon, neomaterialism.tumblr.com, upload on 2015 February 20, [read online on 2021 January 29]. Available on https://neomaterialism.tumblr.com/
Francesco Finizio is graduated of a Master of Fine Arts from Hunter College in New York in 1992. In 1997, he completed his formation with a post-diploma at École supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Marseille. From 2000 to 2005, he taught sculpture and video at University Aix-Marseille. He is now teaching at Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Brest. His work has been presented at MOBY, Museums of Bat Yam in Tel Aviv – Israel (2015), at CAN in Neuchâtel – Switzerland (2016) or more recently at RDV Gallery in Nantes (2019).
Image : © Francesco Finizio. Photo credit : Aurélien Mole
Mauve Zone
In partnership with :
Mauve Zone
Frac Bretagne-Art Norac Award 2021 : The Nominees
Launched in 2020, he Frac Bretagne–Art Norac Award aims to support the professional development of Brittany-based artists at the international level. The award is a Frac Bretagne initiative supported by Art Norac, the sponsorship association of the Norac group. The goal of the award is to help bring artists active in the region to the international scene, in order to promote the professionalisation of their journey beyond the borders of France.
The Visual Arts Center in Austin in the United States is associated with the program and in 2022 will host the award-winning artist to produce a solo exhibition in its space.
The exhibition at Frac Bretagne presents the nominees.
The artists
Corentin Canesson, born in 1988, lives and works between Brest and Paris.
Graduated from EESAB-Rennes in 2011, he participated to the 21st Prize of Fondation d’entreprise Ricard Le Fil d’Alerte. He has presented solo exhibitions at Satorgallery (2020), at Nathalie Obadiagallery), at Crédac – Centre d’art contemporain d’Ivry-sur-Seine (2017) and at Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain Passerelle de Brest (2015).
Hilary Galbreaith, born in 1989, lives and works in Rennes
Graduated from ESAAA-Annecy in 2017, she presented her work at the Zoo Galerie in Nantes (2018).Finalist for the Sciences Po Prize in 2019, her work is presented the sameyear at Abattoirs, Musée – Frac Occitanie Toulouse and at the Confort Moderne in Poitiers. Sheis part of the 69th Jeune Création edition in Paris in 2020.
Camille Girard et Paul Brunet, born in 1985, born in 1980, live and work in Quimper.
Graduated from EESAB-Quimper in 2008. Their works have been notably presented at Frac des Pays de la Loire in Carquefou (2018), at Mains D’Œuvres in Saint-Ouen(2017), at Halle Nord in Geneva (2017) at Le Quartier Centre d’art contemporain in Quimper (2014).
Samir Mougas, born in 1980, lives and works in Rennes.
Graduated from EESAB-Quimper (2005) and then from a MFA in theNetherlands (2007). His work was presented at the 9th International Design Biennale of Saint-Etienne (2015), at the Printemps de Septembre in Toulouse (2018). In 2019, he worked on a bus lineas part of the Voyage à Nantes. In 2020, his work is the subject of a solo exhibition at Galerie Eric Mouchet, Paris.
Alisson Schmitt, born in 1992, lives and works in Rennes.
Graduated from EESAB-Rennes in 2016 and from a post-graduate research program in Shanghai (2017). In 2018, she was part of Les Chantiers residency program at Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain in Brest, following which she had a personal exhibition. She also presented her work at Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rennes (2016), at the Babel Lelab Festival in Hangzhou and at the SowerArt Space in Shanghai (2018) as well as at Parc-Saint-Léger Centre d’art contemporain in Pougues-les-Eaux (2020).
Anaïs Touchot, born in 1987, lives and works in Brest.
Graduated from EESAB-Brest in design (2010) and in art (2011), herworkhas been presented at CAN in Neuchâtel, at Passerelle Contemporary art center in Brest and at the Festival de L’Estran (2016). The following year, she had a residency in Puerto Colombia as part of the France-Colombia cultural year. In 2019, she created a Pédilove in Frac Bretagne’s Canyon and presented a solo exhibition at L’apparté, acontemporary art venue in Iffendic.
Elsa Vettier, curator
Elsa Vettier is an independent curator and art critic. Trained at the Ecole du Louvre and the University of Essex (United Kingdom), she regularly contributes to specialized journals including Zérodeux, artpress, Critique d’Art, etc. She previously worked alongside Charlotte Laubard for Nuit Blanche 2017 and with Etienne Bernard and Céline Kopp on the occasion of the 6th edition of the Ateliers de Rennes – contemporary art biennial.
His personal projects – curatorial and editorial – emerge in contact with artists and embrace a plurality of formats: between exhibition-performance (“Extasis Casual”, with Samuel Nicolle and Clara Pacotte, In-box Bruxelles, 2019), fiction interview (Saint -Pierre-des-corps, with Jean-Charles de Quillacq, ed. Sombres Torrents, 2020) and radio collaborations (LL Drops, with Kevin Desbouis, Julie Sas and Fabien Vallos, * DUUU radio, 2020). She also works to support artists in residency contexts (Les Chantiers, La Malterie, etc.) and within art schools
Top images : Corentin Canesson © Anne-Laure Buffard, Hilary Galbreaith © Sebastiano Pellion di Persano, Camille Girard & Paul Brunet © Margot Montigny, Anaïs Touchot, Alisson Schmitt © Margot Montigny, Samir Mougas.
In the slider : Mauve Zone exhibition’s views. Photo credit : Aurélien Mole.
Coca-Cola triskel
Coca-Cola triskel | Photographs from the Frac Bretagne collection
Coca-Cola triskel is the facetious title of a work by Raymond Hains, but it is also the unlikely union of modernity and tradition. This disparity is so characteristic of Brittany. At the invitation of the city of Lorient and the Lorient Interceltic Festival, the Frac Bretagne has put up an exhibition celebrating this theme of the territory, led by artists who live or have lived in Brittany, and who have been greatly inspired by this land.
THE ARTISTS
Isabelle Arthuis (1969, France) Lives and works in Brussels.
Virginie Barré (1970, France) Lives and works in Douarnenez.
Muriel Bordier (1965, France) Lives and works in Rennes.
Daniel Challe (1961, France) Lives and works in Lorient.
Anita Gauran (1988, France) Lives and works in Rennes.
Raymond Hains (1926-2005, France)
Malick Sidibé (1936-2016, Mali)
Eric Tabuchi and Nelly Monnier (1960 and 1988, France) Live and work in Paris.
Michel Thersiquel (1944-2007, France)
Yves Trémorin (1959, France) Lives and works in Rennes.
USEFUL INFORMATION
Exhibition to discover at the galerie du Faouëdic, boulevard Général Leclerc in Lorient from Wednesday to Sunday, from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Free exhibition and free entry.
Imagery: Michel Thersiquel, Sans titre, de l’ensemble Le pays Bigouden. Collection Frac Bretagne © Michel Thersiquel-Les Amis de Michel Thersiquel