Moteur
Group show
Exhibition view, Moteur, Centre d’art contemporain d’Ivry – le Crédac, 2007 Julien Pastor, L’ivryienne, 2007, Tent canvas, mosquito net, aluminum, composite materials and zipper, 166 × 166 × 120 cm © Photo : André Morin / le Crédac 2007
Exhibition view, Moteur, Centre d’art contemporain d’Ivry – le Crédac, 2007 Nicolas Dion, Gens du cimetière, spring and autumn 2005, Silver photography on aluminum mounted on wooden frame, 92 × 120 cm Maison noire, spring and autumn 2005, Silver photography on aluminum mounted on wooden frame, 145 × 96 cm Arbre 1, spring and autumn 2005, Silver photography on aluminum mounted on wooden frame, 40 × 50 cm Arbre 2, spring and autumn 2005, Silver photography on aluminum mounted on wooden frame, 40 × 50 cm Poteau d’angle, spring and autumn 2005, Silver photography on aluminum mounted on wooden frame, 98 × 144 cm © Photo : André Morin / le Crédac 2007
Exhibition view, Moteur, Centre d’art contemporain d’Ivry – le Crédac, 2007 Marie Preston Callebasses, 2007, Installation, wax and 2 black and white photos, variable dimensions Plaine, 2007, Video, sound, 27 min © Photo : André Morin / le Crédac 2007
Exhibition view, Moteur, Centre d’art contemporain d’Ivry – le Crédac, 2007 Estefanía Peñafiel Loaiza, D’un regard l’autre (hasta mañana Rebecca, espero que tu no vas a olvidar), 2007, Installation, inkjet print (24 000 images, 10 × 15 cm), variable dimensions © Photo : André Morin / le Crédac 2007
Exhibition view, Moteur, Centre d’art contemporain d’Ivry – le Crédac, 2007 Astrid Méry Sinivassin, Vue partielle de la piscine des pingouins, PRTIT BAIN, 1,57m, 2007 © Photo : André Morin / le Crédac 2007
Exhibition view, Moteur, Centre d’art contemporain d’Ivry – le Crédac, 2007 Marlène Mocquet, Le Cheval de l’échiquier, 2007, Technique mixte sur toile, 130 × 195 cm, courtesy galerie Alain Gutharc, Paris ; La marguerite dans le mer, 2007, Mixed media on canvas, 89 × 116 cm, courtesy galerie Alain Gutharc, Paris ; La ville à l’envers, 2007, Mixed media on canvas, 223 × 155 cm, courtesy galerie Alain Gutharc, Paris ; Le chat montagne, 2007, Mixed media on canvas, 130 × 195 cm, courtesy galerie Alain Gutharc, Paris ; La pensée blanche, 2007, Mixed media on canvas, 110 × 110 cm, courtesy galerie Alain Gutharc, Paris ; Fantômes, Mixed media on canvas, 130 × 97 cm, private collection © Photo : André Morin / le Crédac 2007
Exhibition view, Moteur, Centre d’art contemporain d’Ivry – le Crédac, 2007 Julien Laforge, La mer des mamelles, 2006, Wood, plaster and peat, 300 × 450 × 350 cm © Photo : André Morin / le Crédac 2007
Artists: Nicolas Dion, Julien Laforge, Astrid Méry-Sinivassin, Marlène Mocquet, Julien Pastor, Estefanía Peñafiel Loaiza, Marie Preston
Motor, such as the clapper for the first take of a film, but also the engine of a vehicle that must be supplied with fuel to move forward.
Invited in 2006 by Henri-Claude Cousseau, director of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, to participate in the diploma jury (with Thierry Raspail, President of the Jury, Régine Kölle and Daniel Firman, artists), I was able to see and talk to some 150 students who had spent five to six years studying in art schools. It was for me a new experience. The rule: for each student, 45 minutes of presentation of their artistic work, its objectives, and its challenges. 100 graduated, 14 of them with the «congratulations of the jury». How? «We have decided here by a careful “Plus Petit Commun Multiple” in three components assembled together: personal investment, pugnacious conviction and consistent implementation of materials, whatever they are, to the most coherent inconsistencies… That’s all we have seen» says Thierry Raspail in the introduction to the catalog of Cadrage / Débordement published on the occasion of this exhibition held at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris until July 13th, 2007.
It is a fascinating exercise to discover these works, multiple, diverse, and at the same time, out of time, shifted, informed, refusing for some formatting. It is also remarkable to discover the artists who teach in this school and who stand as close as possible to them. For Moteur, I am thinking of Jean-Michel Alberola, Vincent Barré, Christian Boltanski, Patrick Faigenbaum/Marc Pataut, Dominique Gauthier, Patrick Tosani, Jean-Luc Vilmouth.
My choice was not oriented towards artists whose work is necessarily close to what we are developing as an artistic program at Crédac. The challenge, or more precisely the project, is not there. The idea is not to translate criteria of fashion, current events or taste, but rather to exhibit levels of art, forms, mediums and ideas that reflect our times and this school: a very great diversity.
We all ask ourselves, I think, the question of the teaching of art, of art systems, but also of the possible margins to this system. I wanted to continue the dialogue with these young, tenacious, lucid, voluntary and talented artists who express themselves through media such as engraving, sculpture, painting, photography, video, installation.
May their universes be political (Nicolas Dion, Marie Preston, Estefanía Peñafiel Loaiza) reactive to the context (Julien Pastor) dreamlike, fantastic (Julien Laforge, Marlène Mocquet, Astrid Méry-Sinivassin).
The wager of Motor is to try to bring together artists who never imagined exhibiting together.
So many challenges you’d day.
Isn’t this also the stake, the mission of a contemporary art center ?
I am convinced that it is!
Claire Le Restif
With the complicity of Tony Regazzoni
Video(s)
Film of the exhibition © Claire Le Restif / le Crédac
