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26/6/2000

Lyon Biennial 2000

Halle Tony Garnier, Lyon

Sharing exoticisms. The theme

The notion of equality of cultures continues to make its mark, and enhancement of non-western arts progresses little by little. The two snags which hinder this evolution in the plastic arts are the obedience to religious beliefs and the arrogance of a conception of modern western lifestyle. Exchange of cultures is at the heart of the third millennium challenge. It is time to take stock of the process and art form in the different ways that cultural disciplines think, practice and produce, including in the West. Objects chosen worldwide and originating from far-off cultures, which are the result of ritual activities or similar functions, will be compared. For the fifth edition the Biennial wishes to reconcile objects and behaviour which are not based on formal comparisons alone. At the same time a glance at Art and the World.

General Commissioner : Jean-Hubert Martin
Artistic Directors : Thierry Prat, Thierry Raspail
Venue : Halle Tony Garnier, Lyon, France


The biennale 2000 : sharing exoticisms

IInitially planned for 1999, the Lyon biennale will take place in the summer of the year 2000 so as to take part in the national celebrations for "2000 in France".

It will inaugurate the reopening of the halle Tony Garnier to the public - an area which, at the present time, is part of a huge programme of restoration by the City of Lyon.

For this 5th event, Thierry Raspail and Thierry Prat have invited Jean-Hubert Martin to consider an intentionally international event, called "Partage d'exotismes", bringing to light contemporary artistic creation on the five continents.

It will be discussing the work of art, process and form such as all the cultural arenas think, practice and produce in their differences near and far, North and South, including Western cultures.

The 5th biennale of Lyon will hopefully restore the incredible freedom of the use of shapes, signs and poetics across the world. At present, a list of artists coming from 53 different countries has already been set up.

Beside Jean-Hubert Martin, curator, Thierry Prat and Thierry Raspail, artistic directors, a scientific committee of anthropologists, meeting for the event, ensures a critical and analytical function regarding the work of art in the face of this widening of art to other cultures.

The committee comprises :

Marc Augé, Head of Studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Centre d'Anthropologie des Mondes Contemporains, Paris,

Alban Bensa, Head of Studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris,

Jacques Leenhardt, sociologist and Head of Studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, art critic and President of the Crestet Art Centre, Crestet, France,

Philippe Peltier, Curator at the Musée des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie, Head of the Oceania section, Paris,

Carlo Severi, researcher at the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, member of the Social Anthropology Laboratory at the Collège de France, Paris.

La halle Tony Garnier

Thanks to the immense span of its metal framework, the halle represents an architectural achievement, 210 m long, without pillars; made up of a series of arcs, 86 metres wide, and natural light.

Finished in 1928, the work of the architect Tony Garnier from Lyon, the halle is part of a vast Utopian project, and represents an outstanding testimony to metallic architecture very much in fashion at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.

The last trace of the ambitious site of Gerland and the Lyon Abattoirs destroyed in 1974, the halle has been classified since 1975 as a historic monument, and became a venue for cultural events in 1988.


Jean-Hubert Martin curator of the biennale 2000

"The great change which marks the end of this century is the possibility for every artist from the world over, whether of religious inspiration, magic or not, to make himself known in keeping with the codes and references of his own culture."
Jean-Hubert Martin

Jean-Hubert Martin was Director of the Kunsthalle in Bern from 1982 to 1985 and Director of the Musée National d'Art Moderne (Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris) from 1987 to 1990. Since 1994, he has been Director of the Musée des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie in Paris. As from January 2000, he will take on new functions as Director at the Ehrenhof Art Foundation in Dusseldorf which manages the Kunstmuseum and the future Kunsthalle of the town.

1976 Francis Picabia, Grand Palais, Paris

1978-1989 exhibitions at the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

1978 Malevitch Filliou et Pfeufer : la Fondation Popoï présente un hommage aux Dogons et aux Rimbauds, Paris-Berlin

1979 Paris-Moscou

1982 Man Ray French participation at the Sydney biennale

1989 Magiciens de la Terre, Centre Georges Pompidou and La Villette, Paris

1994 Rencontres africaines, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris

1995 Galerie des Cinq Continents, Musée des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie, Paris French participation at Africus, Johannesburg biennale

1996 biennale of Sao Paolo

1997 Arts du Nigeria, Musée des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie, Paris

Lyon

The second French urban area, crossroads of the Rhône-Alpes region, Lyon offers the resources of a cultural and economic metropolis which has managed to preserve the heritage of a two thousand year old city while developping its creativity.

The historic site of Lyon has been registered in the World Heritage by Unesco in 1998.

Lyon has also long been known for its technological innovations specially in the mechanics, textile and chemical sectors.


Invited curator of the biennale 2000

Jean-Hubert Martin - partage d'exotismes, sharing exoticisms

The living art has traditionally been considered in terms of chronology, of the modern and the post-modern ticking by in an endless series of successively supplanted movements. By contrast, the current climate of globalisation calls for a vision that is more spatial than temporal - one that sets the arts in their synchronic, geographical context.

Five full centuries of the global era have gone by since the world was first recognised as round. Cultural isolation belongs to the distant past - and yet, despite the impression of uniformity conveyed by contemporary urban architecture, cultural levelling hardly seems a major threat. Beneath the occidental facade lies a philosophical diversity still far from stifled by cartesian logic.

We have been too ready to see the Western tidal wave as an irresistible force for acculturation and cultural extinction. The new state of affairs represented by today's extraordinary cacophony - rather than polyphony - involves considering artists and their work in the context of their history: the works on show derive from traditions and frames of reference that know nothing of art theory, Hegel and critical over-interpretation. And provided our attention is not monopolised by the overtly western-influenced pieces, we can only be struck by their cultural strangeness.

Their exotic quality, then, is undeniable, even if a certain "inward" disorientation is indissociable from any true work of art. The word "exotic" has long suffered from a purely colonialist connotation: yet the fact remains that the quasi-ineluctable, universal dominance of Western models - in what seem to us standardised forms - in no way reduces their strangeness for others.

It is to this partage d'exotismes that the exhibition invites us. To avoid the misrepresentation inherent in an exclusively Western perspective, we need to turn to anthropology. Thus the works will be grouped in categories according to their function, meaning and relationship to human attitudes, with their creators' perceptions of differing behaviours highlighting both resemblances and dissimilarities.

Fundamental human feelings and activities will be a core concern, as will such recurring aesthetic preoccupations as body painting and tattooing. In a neat echo of contemporary fashion in the West, some of the artists will point up the renaissance of tattooing in certain Oceanian cultures.

The emphasis will be on the visual, on pieces that embody meaning without shrinking from the spectacular. The ephemeral works will remain on display throughout: short-term exhibition techniques limiting access to these items to those fortunate enough to attend the opening will be avoided. Every exhibit will appear in all its individual strangeness, unencumbered by pre-digested interpretations and allowing free rein to the viewer's imagination. A few hints on preference will provide visual keys, but there will be no heavy-handed, guilt-inducing insistence on fixed ways of seeing. Each category will be introduced not by a title but by an object - in most cases one having no direct relationship with contemporary art - designed to establish the atmosphere and the thematic direction. These heraldic objects will recall the visual allusions - often semantic short-circuits - that we come across in artists' studios.

The order of presentation will allow visitors to better assess the impact of each work by seeing it as part of a sequence.

In harmony with this mosaic of points of view, the layout of the exhibition will do its utmost to get away from the standard white box concept: an emphasis on innovative placing and viewing angles will use the vastness of the Halle Tony Garnier to its best advantage. Dialectics, so vital and inescapable an aspect of the cultural history of the West in the 20th century, can no longer settle for the hermetic attitudes and interpretations of a self-chosen few. Its function now is to strive towards coexistence for ideas born of highly diverse modes of thought.

Useful information Contact :

Biennale de Lyon art contemporain
(association les biennales de Lyon)
3 rue Président Herriot, 69001 Lyon

tel. 04 72 07 41 41
fax 04 72 00 03 13

Artistic direction :
Jean-Hubert Martin, curator
Thierry Prat, Thierry Raspail, artistic directors

General management :
Henri Foriel-Destezet, Sylvie Burgat
Yves Le Sergent, administrator

Communication :
Didier Coirint, director
Nathalie Thiers, assistant

Press office :
Heymann, Renoult Associées
Contact : Agnès Renoult
6 rue Roger Verlomme, 75003 Paris
tel. 33 (0)1 44 61 76 76
fax 33 (0)1 44 61 74 40

Professional preview :
Sunday 25 and monday 26 June 2000 (to be confirmed)

Catalogues of the biennale :

The Réunion des Musées Nationaux will reissue the catalogue of the 1995 biennale. This catalogue has become a landmark in its field. Including statements by the 64 artists on show, it analyses cinema, video and computers as possible models for contemporary art.

Bilingual edition, 572 pages, 320 Illustrations. On sale 22 October 1999 Information: RMN Distribution Centre, Paris : tel. 33 (0)1 60 06 63 14 - fax 33 (0)1 60 06 20 45.

The catalogues of the biennale 1991 (L'amour de l'art), 1993 (Et tous ils changent le monde) and 1997 (L'autre) are sold out.

Sponsors :

The Lyon biennale is financed by the Town of Lyon, the Ministry of Culture and Communication, the Rhône-Alpes regional Council and "2000 in France". It also benefits from the support of private sponsors.

The official biennale 2000 partners: Fondation Electricité de France, Vivendi, Sodexho, Bull, Larson Juhl, Framatome, Caisse des dépôts et consignations.

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