3/2/2012
Lili Reynaud-Dewar
Magasin, Grenoble
This is my place / Ceci est ma maison. Creating oblique relationships between her own familial history and ubiquitous cultural signifiers of both racial political struggle and identity politics, the artist draws from myriad influences, from Rastafarianism to radical design to the history of cinema. Reynaud-Dewar's performances are conceived as an expansion of her exhibitions practice, they functioning as a set and props contrary to the architecture and approach of theatre production.
Curator Yves Aupetitallot
After devoting its hanging space to the question of the picture as it relates to performance (Tableaux, 29.05-04.09.2011), the young scene in Italy (SI- Sindrome Italiana, 10.10.2010-02.01.2011), and a first research study centered on Mai-Thu Perret (The Adding Machine, 08.10.2011-08.01.2012), the MAGASIN is carrying on with its program of support and encouragement for an emerging generation by entrusting its entire exhibition area to Lili Reynaud-Dewar.
“The exhibition Ceci est ma maison / This Is My Place takes an article I recently published in my own journal Petunia as its starting point. In it I champion the indefensible idea that, for a woman artist, real estate and the economic imperatives of maintenance that go with it are a drag on the development of her practice. I maintain that the exhibition areas where we are called on to show our work for ‘limited periods’ take the place of a ‘home’: we can furnish them, live in them even, for a time, then get rid of them without leaving any traces other than ad hoc photographic documentation. Starting from this hypothesis, I make up my mind to occupy the MAGASIN symbolically. I have conceived the exhibition as a sequence of rooms featuring spaces that are simultaneously mental and domestic. A diachronic itinerary, highly charged and contradictory, in the course of which biographical and anti-biographical features, private and collective history confront one another, where tutelary and mythical figures, members of my own family and friends rub shoulders. It brings together many sculptures and videos I have made in recent years, and their cumulative duration would perhaps involve a visit to the exhibition lasting longer than is reasonable.
This succession of rooms is structured round a corridor in which documentation of my work (exhibition posters, videos of performances) is collected, taking the place of memory and playing with the codes of institutional mediation. It opens, or closes, depending on how you look at it, with a new work: thinking about a house that was never built, therefore never lived in either: the Baker House, a scheme by the Viennese architect Adolphe Loos for the American dancer Joséphine Baker. Painted on the walls of the MAGASIN, the motif of black and white stripes that was to decorate the façade of the Baker House is the set for a performance only photographs of which will be made public, in which for the first time I put my own body on stage, dancing the famous choreographies of Joséphine Baker in the empty space of La Rue.” Lili Reynaud-Dewar.
Creating oblique relationships between her own familial history and ubiquitous cultural signifiers of both racial political struggle and identity politics not stereotypically associated with her own background, Lili Reynaud- Dewar draws from myriad influences, from Rastafarianism to radical design to the history of cinema. She often identifies with other historical figures that have subverted the boundaries of cultural or racial labels, such as the writer and activist Jean Genet or Sun Ra’s denouncements of the African-American identity as myth in order to contest US segregationist policy.
Lili Reynaud-Dewar’s performances are conceived as an expansion of her exhibitions practice, her installations functioning as a set and props contrary to the architecture and approach of theatre production.
Through the shifting roles and relationships of the performers and the objects she creates a dialogue that questions the orthodoxies of a definitive performative identity and the role of the gallery as a space for the choreography of objects.
Lili Reynaud-Dewar was born in La Rochelle, France, in 1975. She lives and works in Paris, France.
Image: Cléda's Chairs, 2011. View of the exhibition, Bielefelder Kunstverein, Bielefeld © Lili Reynaud-Dewar. Photo Philipp Ottendörfer. Courtesy from the artist, the galleries kamel mennour and Mary Mary Glasgow
Press contact:
Léa Deshusses l.deshusses@magasin-cnac.org Catherine Giraud c.giraud@magasin-cnac.org
Tél.: 04 76216526
Agence Claudine Colin Communication: Valentine Dolla Tél.: 01 42726001 valentine@claudinecolin.com
Opening Saturday 4 February at 6pm
MAGASIN – Centre National d’Art Contemporain
Site Bouchayer-Viallet, 155 Cours Berriat 38000 Grenoble
open from Tuesday to Sunday, 2pm to 7pm.