Louvel Romain
dal 14/6/2012 al 11/8/2012
Segnalato da
14/6/2012
Louvel Romain
La Criee Centre for Contemporary Art, Rennes
L'Exposition. A new installation. Romain's works combine with artistic approaches that are concerned about the political activity of art and its critical presence in the social and institutional.
Curator Carole Brulard
From 15 June to 12 August 2012 La Criée is presenting L’Exposition (The Exhibition), a new installation by French artist-researcher Romain Louvel. Following the residencies «Expeditions», this work shows La Criée’s interest in processes of creation which question and experiment with interdisciplinarity.
Since the late 1990s, Romain Louvel has been
using both his art and his research to explore
the relationships between art and social
reality. His approach employs systems of
artistic infiltration and disturbance of everyday
routine in terms of public space, language
and forms of social behaviour. Experimenting
with «social art practices», he sees art as «a
tool for triggering debate and bringing to light
the invisible elements that structure our social
relationships.»
The Exhibition is the product of an initiative
that crystallizes these issues. In March 2012
the «Expeditions» project, launched by the Âge
de la Tortue community association, La Criée
Centre for Contemporary Arts, the local GRPAS
social activities group, and the Le Commun
social science collective from Montpellier,
brought together artists, researchers,
street educators, children and families in a
series of experiments in Rennes’ Maurepas
neighbourhood. The idea was to tweak old-
style ethnographic expeditions by taking a fresh
look at preconceptions about «working-class»
areas and promoting residents’ unseen cultural
resources. Observing, describing and collecting
features of everyday life in various media –
painting, photography, logbooks, mapping,
Super 8 film – were different stages in the work
this multidisciplinary group carried out with
Maurepas kids during a residency lasting from
9 – 18 March.
However, where the «Expeditions» team set
out to replay and rechannel the theme of
the ethnographic expedition – that powerful
symbol of past dominance – Romain Louvel’s
The Exhibition takes the approach a step
further by applying it to the art field. Centering
on objects used, produced and collected
by the participants in the «Expeditions»
project, his installation constructs a critical
space in which today’s cultural mediation
practices, together with the museumizing
principles and techniques so widespread in
cultural institutions in France, are challenged
and in some cases subverted. In this way
The Exhibition takes issue with the implicit
role of art venues and expertise in cultural
representation: not only in art, but also in the
fields of science, tradition, knowledge and skills.
For Romain Louvel, «The Exhibition is not an
exhibition. And yet it takes the form of one.
Can you give a thing the name of something
which it is not? This is the kind of ambiguity
The Exhibition tries to analyse via a
presentation of the exhibition as spectacle.»
Production: La Criée centre for contemporary arts
Partnership: L’âge de la tortue, GRPAS, Le Commun
Image: © Julien Lemière et Anthony Folliard, L’Atelier du bourg, 2012
Meeting with Romain Louvel:
Saturday 16 June 2012, 3pm at La Criée
Guided tour:
Friday 22 June 2012, 5pm at La Criée
Press officer:
Marie Lemeltier T. +33 (0)2 23622514 m.lemeltier@ville-rennes.fr
Opening on Friday 15 June 2012, 6:30pm
La Criée
Place Honoré Commeurec
Halles centrales _ F-35000 Rennes
From Tuesday to Friday 12noon-7pm
Saturday and Sunday 2pm-7pm
Closed on Monday and public holidays
free admission