Alis/Filliol
Jennifer Allora
Guillermo Calzadilla,
Bruno Botella
Miriam Cahn
Jason Dodge
David Douard
Diego Marcon
Guy Mees
David Musgrave
Antoine Nessi
Reto Pulfer
Samuel Richardot
Pamela Rosenkranz
Sterling Ruby
Michael E. Smith
Benjamin Swaim
Gyan Panchal
Different environments, human and non-human, coexist. The exhibition brings together artists who attempt to give expression to an experience at the edges of the human. What becomes of the body when it ventures out to the periphery of its self, when it rubs against the boundary of its own definition?
Curated by: Gyan Panchal
Different environments, human and non-human, coexist. These environments barely ever meet – when they don’t ignore each other altogether. Working at the boundary of these worlds, the artists of the Being Thing exhibition give substance and form to the possibility of an encounter.
What is it to be a thing? Is being human nothing other than being a thing amongst others? Can a thing be, without necessarily being human? The Being Thing exhibition brings together artists who attempt to give expression to an experience at the edges of the human. What becomes of the body when it ventures out to the periphery of its self, when it rubs against the boundary of its own definition? The works gathered together here do not necessarily envisage the separation between humans and non-humans in terms of discontinuity. Bodies are ineluctably altered, fragmented and reassembled. They transform into indefinable figures, evolving at the crossroads of these worlds.
The Being Thing exhibition is spread out over two sites in Limousin, the Centre International d’Art et du Paysage de Vassivière and Treignac Projet, and devised by the artist Gyan Panchal, invited to be the exhibition’s associate curator. The hanging has been conceived around ‘atmospheres’ and demonstrates a subjective approach to the works as so many ways of being in the world. The exhibition makes its way from one space to the next in a cycle where fragments and condensations alternate. Artistic families which are poles apart, between excess and restraint, mix and mingle. Mainly comprised of objects, sculptures and paintings, the exhibition contains few images, as though the latter were incapable of taking into account these forms of life.
Lastly, the subject of Being Thing falls within a current topic of art research where the anthropocentric interpretation of the world is being questioned more than ever. Instigated by artists’ work, by articles and symposiums (in particular The Matter of Contradiction organised by Sam Basu, Fabien Giraud, Ida Soulard and Tom Trevatt in 2012 on the Île de Vassivière), exhibitions dealing with the relations between mankind and the non-human have been on the rise: Animism in Anvers in 2010, Nature After Nature in Kassel in 2014, The Noing Uv It in Bergen in 2015, and Inhuman in Kassel at this very moment. While enriched by these reflections, Being Thing is above all based on the experience of the artworks which gave rise to the exhibition, and on a approach to the palpable and to perception marked by a proximity with nature rather than any particular concept or another.
Press Contact:
Coralie Desmurs Tel. +33(0)5 55692727 communication@ciapiledevassiviere.com
Opening: 4th of july 2015 6.00pm
Centre international d’art et du paysage
Île de Vassivière F-87120 Beaumont-du-Lac
Opening Hours:
Tuesday–Sunday 11 am – 1 pm / 2 – 6 pm