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17/5/2012

Supercluster

CAN - Centre d'Art Neuchatel, Neuchatel

Phase n°1
Phoenix Artificier

Stephan Freivogel / Laurent Montaron / Nicolas Provost

Interventions during the exhibition : Matthieu Pilloud / Marion Tampon-Lajarriette / Sebastien verdon / ...

The CAN’s team is trying to renew its quest from a permanently unstable point. To achieve this, it’s starting a cycle of exhibitions and events which will attempt to synthesize the CAN’s different practical and theoretical preoccupations, by trying to provoke a convergence of its institutional self-criticism and the exhibitions proposed in the white cube. This cycle, named Supercluster, will be made up of a succession of organically conceived sequences. They will follow, one after another, with no truly perceptible ending or start for each one. Thus the exhibition will be in permanent transition. The exhibition spaces and the offices will be progressively fused together to limit the separation between arts’ presentation space – usually freezing the exhibitions time – and its conception and realization, which remain in constant movement. It’s about residing and living in the art space, rather than making it live, willingly mixing praxis and theory, offering a favorable framework for apparition.

Supercluster will present works that can be conceived and produced on-location during the exhibition, as well as preexisting works. Diverse events (conferences, discussions, projections, concerts, performances, etc.) will be held. All this can exist as a spontaneous event, or to the contrary, be programmed before hand. The exhibition spaces will hold part of the offices, and will thus also be the place of conception for the successive transformations of Supercluster. Micro-editions (photocopied prints) will be conceived and printed on-location and throughout the cycle.

The themes approached in the framework of Supercluster will be on the vast problematics of time and space, the sacralization and de-sacralization of works of art in art spaces, favorable conditions for the appearance of a utopian moment or the modification of states of being. In view of the depth, if not heaviness, of these themes, the point is not to voluntarily show them in their stupefying totality. We envision them as thematic clouds from which we will try inhale a few vapors over the course of a trip whose itinerary will be defined according to the artists and teams propositions, as well as the configuration of the encountered terrains.

1st Phase: Phœnix Artificier

Superclusters first sequence, May 18th 2012, will begin with three video installations that will be presented in the main spaces of the CAN. During the exhibition, other works will complete, and replace, the first exhibited installations.

Where You Can See It All the Time, 2010-2012, by Stephan Freivogel, reorganizes the order of a video sequence according to a new spatio-temporal logic. The classical progression of a movie, consisting of a series of bi-dimensional images projected in the order they were taken, is shaken up. Freivogel inverts one of the spacial axes with the temporal axe, hence treating time and space as a single and identical material.

Lent portrait de Sainte Bernadette, 2011, by Laurent Montaron consists of a looping 16mm film. The camera shows the Saint’s portrait, whose body lies in Nevers, France, and shows no sign of decomposition since 1879. The strange sculptural beauty of this face is sublimed by the extremely slow movement of the camera, opening a poetic reflexion on eternity, the generally ephemeral characteristics of flesh and of the medium that attempts to conserve the image - the 16mm film is worn out over time during the exhibition, where the image of the Saint’s face has a tendency to fade.

With Long Live the New Flesh, 2009, Nicolas Provost appears to push the compression of video images to such an extreme to bring them to the brink of destruction. In revealing the structure of pixels in horror movies, he is able to mute the images in an abstract and brutal material, which paradoxically acquires a fascinating pictorial beauty.

Each of these three works specifically question the film medium, its relation to time and image. If they bring up reflexions on our media environment, they also allow the spectator to be immersed in the heart of a hypnotic experience where his senses and apprehensions of time are disturbed.

In the weeks following the opening, several artists will augment and transform the initial situation. Matthieu Pilloud, Marion Tampon-Lajariette and Sebastien Verdon (among others) will freely intervene in the exhibition. Hence this last will be in permanent movement, inducing a constant redefinition of its interpretations. Thus Supercluster will attempt to fuse praxis and theory to come closer to a thought and a creativity which is deployed on the fine line of the present. The different artistic interventions will give grounds for intermediate openings which will be announced on a day to day basis through e-mail and on our website.

Project history
As with many other art centers, the CAN (Art Center, Neuchâtel) is somewhere between an independent space and an institution. Managed by an association, it depends on public subsidies for 25% of its budget. In 2008 a new team moved in to the CAN. At first the team developed two distinct levels of thought: on one hand a program of critical exhibitions, and on the other, interested in its own manner of functioning, with a strong practice of internal de-hierarchization, namely in the shape of an institutional self-criticism. This strategy aims to avoid the teams bureaucratization, voluntarily playing on a blurred line between an independent space and an institution, all the while multiplying the artistic risks.

In parallel to the “classic” exhibitions offered in the CAN’s white cube, the team leads more experimental projects, attempting to call into question the exhibitions’ temporality and a-temporality, in the works and their conception. Hence the Summerlabs reunited dozens of artists without any preconceived projects, imposing a rhythm of 2 or 3 openings a day, for a period of 2 to 3 weeks. In addition, the CAN’s secondary spaces (studio, cave, hallways) were entrusted to a new organization in 2010. The L’OV is conceived of as a “fake off-space” whose programming is independent of the CAN’s, and unites young artists and curators. These people freely conceive exhibitions, events, performances, conferences, editions and parties, in a critical and reactive spirit, a fast pace and very little financial means. One of the L’OV’s goals is to offer a criticism, sometimes ironic, of the drifting in contemporary art scenes, without sparring that which is offered in the CAN’s main spaces. The L’OV thus plays the role of a stimulating virus in the heart of the art center’s structure. Today, the L’OV’s virus having been fully assimilated by the CAN’s body, the team is looking to fuse its diverse interests in a complete and exhaustive project, which, naturally and ironically, took on the title Supercluster.

CAN (Arthur de Pury, Marie Villemin, Marie Léa Zwahlen, Martin Widmer, Julian Thompson, Massimiliano Baldassarri)

Image: Nicolas Provost, Long Live the New Flesh, 2009. Still video

Press contact :
Marie Villemin tel: +41 (0)78 739 30 22 e-mail: mv@can.ch

Opening Friday May 18 at 18h30

Centre d’Art Neuchâtel
37, rue des Moulins - CH-2000 Neuchâtel
Opening hours (during exhibitions):
Wednesday to Sunday: 14h-18h
Thursday: 14h-20h
The CAN is open during the holidays
Free entry

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