PSJM
OLIGOCRACY
From December 7th 2017 to February 3rd 2018
Exibition Curator: Yann Toma
Vernissage le 6 décembre 2017
Sorbonne Artgalleryis thrilled to present you the series Oligocracy by PSJM, showcased from December 7th 2017 to February 3rd 2018.
For this project, PSJM employs a series of rhetorical and visual strategies to reveal a hidden reality in plain sight. The current capitalist system and its sibling, liberal democracy, present themselves as the power of the many (neoliberals even identify it as “consumer power”), while real power actually lies in the hands of a few - namely, a handful of brands that act as shields for conglomerates.
Oligocracy brings together nine compositions representing the Big Three of our time. By extension, the Big Three, a term that originally referred to the major brands in the automotive industry (Ford, Chrysler, General Motors), is commonly used in the business world to designate the three leading companies in their sector. PSJM’s compositions and arrangements combine the brands to create contemporary emblems that suggest the existence of a new feudalism, a concept explored by Jean Ziegler in “The Empire of Shame” and “The New Masters of the World.”
The design of this work was specifically adapted to the environment of the Panthéon-Sorbonne, home to the Sorbonne Artgallery. The sumptuous architecture of the space is particularly well-suited to creating a link with another theme implicit in the project's aesthetic composition: the relationship between power and knowledge, which Foucault made visible in his genealogies and archaeologies of knowledge. Oligocracy, like all of PSJM's works, thus harbors a multitude of references in its polysemy, opening up several levels of meaning materialized in its aesthetic choices. The gold lettering refers to gold as a symbol of political and economic power. The black silk that serves as a backdrop to the new "feudal emblems" of the Big Three embodies a model of capitalist domination, which subjugates the citizen through comfort and the promise of luxury. Ambitious advertising, for example, leads to a fundamental ideological deception, because it leads consumers to believe that everyone can have access to luxury (a false democratization of luxury). Capitalist power strokes you while you submit to it: it is no coincidence that the typeface chosen for the word "Oligocracy" that appears in these images is called Champagne & Limousines.
PSJM is a creative, theoretical, and management team formed by Cynthia Viera (Las Palmas, G.C., 1973) and Pablo San José (Mieres, 1969). PSJM presents itself as an "art brand," appropriating the procedures and strategies of advanced capitalism to subvert its symbolic structures.
The brand-team was included among the 100 most representative artists of international political art in Art & Agenda : Political Art and Activism, (Berlin : Gestalten, 2011). Ils ont également été inclus dans Younger than Jesus. Artist Directory. The essential handbook to the future of art (New York : Phaidon-New Museum, 2009) and Come Together : The Rise of Cooperative Art and Design (New York : Princeton Architectural Press N.Y., 2014), among others. Their work has been featured in numerous international exhibitions, such as Personal Structures at the 58th Biennale de Venise (2015), Beyond the Tropics, at the 56th Biennale de Venise (2015), Hic et Nunc, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C. (2014), One Shot ! Museu Brasileiro da Escultura, São Paulo (2014), Off Street, A Foundation, Londres (2009), The Real Royal Trip... by the Arts, PS1-MoMA, New York (2003, collaborating with El Perro y Aitor Méndez), and others in Spain : Prophetia, Fundación Miró, Barcelone (2015) ou PIGS, Artium, Vitoria (2016).
In the theoretical area, it is important to highlight some of their latest publications: Arte y procesos democráticos (TEA, Tenerife, 2017) Fuego amigo (CENDEAC, Murcia, 2015), and the article "Marcuse y el lema de la CIA" in Revista de Occidente (Madrid, 2016). Their cultural management work includes curating, coordinating and designing : It's Personal (Gabinete Literario, Las Palmas GC, 2019), Biotopias (Gabinete Literario, Las Palmas GC, 2018), Arte y Participación Ciudadana (Las Palmas GC, 2016) and coordinating and designing World is Work, curated by José María Durán (Kwadrat, Berlin, 2010). Their intense activity extends to didactics, where their presence as visiting professors at Washington State University or in the PSJM-Workshop summer workshops at the Cervantes Institute in Berlin (2012-2015) and Gabinete Literario de Las Palmas GC (2018-2019) is relevant.
FÉLICIE D'ESTIENNE D'ORVES
COSMOGRAPHIES
From November 7th to December 2nd 2017
Exibition Curator : Yann Toma
Vernissage le 6 novembre 2017
Sorbonne Artgallery is thrilled to host the exhibition Cosmographies by FÉLICIE D'ESTIENNE D'ORVES, from November 7th to December 2nd 2017.
“Walking through the desert is a physical experience of the relationship to the horizon. The further you advance, the further it recedes. The horizons of the Atacama and Bonneville deserts are enriched by a night sky that offers the naked eye a detailed image of the cosmos, a sky covered with thousands of celestial objects. The apparent proximity of these points of light is deceptive; some celestial objects are close (a few light-years away), while others are located several thousand light-years from Earth. The gaze that engages in interpreting this celestial vault gradually dissolves into the multiple temporalities of the visible stars.
It is this paradox that I explore, between the Euclidean scale of the desert and current models of the universe. In ephemeral land art installations, I use light vectors (laser pointers) to highlight perspectives, spatial and temporal connections between celestial and geographical coordinates.” In locations where the unobstructed horizon allows for a visual balance between the ground plane and the sky, the laser becomes a tool for directing the gaze toward celestial objects on the blank canvas of the desert.
The laser, a modern surveyor's tool (laser standard), is a means of positioning oneself in the cosmos. This large-scale drawing tool allows me to establish spatial relationships according to the site, using light as an interface. The dense, straight laser beam, with its range, challenges our perception of space and gives the sensation of "touching" at a distance.
The repeated actions of the "Cosmographies" series connect the sky and the earth through geometric combinations, creating ephemeral sculptures of light between nearby objects and the deep sky. At a given moment and in a given place, the light patterns reveal the simultaneous relationships between the continuous movement of the Earth and that of the cosmos. The series of photographs underscores a suspension of time between these two immensities.
Félicie d’Estienne d’Orves, born in Athens in 1979, lives and works in Paris.
Blending light, sculpture, and new technologies, Félicie d’Estienne d’Orves’s work explores the process of vision and the conditioning of perception. Her installations draw on a phenomenological understanding of reality, emphasizing the perception of time in continuous motion. Since 2014, the artist has focused her research on astrophysical space and the study of natural light cycles.
In 2012, commissioned by the City of London, she created her first laser installation, “Geometry,” a sculpture of motorized mirrors that projected drawings of elementary geometries into the London sky. Following this project, she envisioned continuing this exploration in the more radical context of the Atacama Desert, as a land art project. In 2014, she began a collaboration with field recording musician Julie Rousse on a land art project in the Atacama Desert. Their first creation, "EXO" (Nuit Blanche de Paris - 2015), is a laser installation that reads the sky like a musical score. They combine the light from lasers projected towards hundreds of celestial objects—stars, planets, black holes, pulsars, GRBs—with an electroacoustic composition by the musician*.
Félicie d’Estienne d’Orves has collaborated since 2011 with astrophysicist Fabio Acero (AIM laboratory, CEA/Saclay) on art-science installations such as Supernova (2011) and EXO (2015), which allow us to grasp the distances and timescales of our universe through the medium of art. In 2016, they developed the Light Standard series, which reintroduces the idea of cosmic time relative to natural rhythms as a reference system. Each standard corresponds to an object in the solar system and tracks the time it takes for light to reach Earth for each one. That's approximately 8 minutes for the Sun, 2 to 15 minutes for Venus, 3 to 22 minutes for Mars, 4 to 4 hours 19 minutes for Neptune, and so on. Félicie d’Estienne d’Orves’ work has been presented at the Centre Pompidou – Nuit Blanche – Le Centquatre / Nemo (Paris) – New Art Space / Sonic Acts (Amsterdam) – Watermans Arts Centre (London) – OCAT (Shanghai) – ICAS (Dresden) – BIAN (Montreal) – Aram Art Museum (Goyang, Korea), and others. The Cosmographies series project in the Atacama Desert was made possible thanks to the support of the CNC (DicrÉam), the Institut Français (PACA), Diffusing Digital Art, and Seconde Nature.
*The “EXO” project will be presented at the Friche Belle de Mai in Marseille on May 19, 2018 (Distribution: GMEM, Production: Seconde Nature, Bipolar).
IAIN BAXTER& (&MAN)
POWER OF &
From October 3rd to November 4th 2017
Exibition Curator : Yann Toma
Opening on October 2nd 2017
Sorbonne Artgallery is thrilled to present you the exhibition Power of & by IAIN BAXTER& (&MAN), showcased from October 3rd to November 4th 2017.
The story of Iain Baxter& unfolds in parallel with that of the contemporary corporation, which began during the economic boom of the 1960s, a period of flourishing American business and its geographic and media expansion. Baxter& explains:
“An artist in this market environment ultimately depends on the charity of those who, for one or another psychosocial reason, wish to ‘support’ the arts (we should add the economic motivation, since art has become the object of rampant speculation). It is essential to free artists from these constraints and to build upon their existing cultural knowledge to better integrate into the worlds of business, politics, and education.”
Creating an artistic structure modeled on the contemporary corporation thus appears as a suitable solution. By making art a business, the artist acquires the status of an entrepreneur and grants himself the same prerogatives as his counterpart in the economic world, thus gaining significant room for maneuver.
As early as 1966, Iain Baxter established the N.E. Thing Company, a business and a work of art in one. In 1969, the British Columbia Gazette, Vancouver's official gazette, incorporated the company into its records, a legal act that literally inscribed the artistic gesture into the world of business, and simultaneously introduced the world of business into the history of art. "Producing sensitive information" was the initial statute and central objective of this pioneering company, determined to erase the traditionally insurmountable gap between aesthetics and economics. Its activity developed over a decade, laying the groundwork for the subsequent emergence of structures with a similar form and ambition. A provider of sensitive information of all kinds, the N.E. Thing Company also organized experiments designed to generate it: an expedition to the Arctic Circle, business consulting services, and the launch of its subsidiaries, the N.E. Photo Lab (photographic laboratory) and the Eye Scream restaurant.
Infiltrating the corporate world requires building a system that is not only credible but also operational. The creation of the company marks the initial step; it then needs to be sustained. Everything that can be learned or taken from the business world will be adapted to the (artistic) context of its implementation: logo, official stationery, stamps, slogans, posters, badges, etc. Art asserts its right to be everywhere. “Art is all over,” insists Baxter&. The year of its official registration, the firm installed a convincingly realistic “corporate environment” in the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa: offices, busy secretaries, the president’s office, and other trappings of the workplace comprised the structure, creating a disorienting transposition for both the eye and the mind. Entering this space was like venturing into a breach where art confronted and held up a mirror to the business world. This gap has continued to widen ever since.
Reinventing the company and reinventing itself as a company are part of the "global stance" advocated by &MAN throughout his life, which he envisioned as a continuous search for new ways to navigate his environment and build solutions adapted to inhabiting the world. And it is precisely there that he situates his field of action, in the landscape in the broadest sense: that of the real world and that constructed by information, understood as the media-message formulated by Marshall McLuhan, whose thought is synonymous with the artist's vision.
For over 50 years, Iain Baxter& has sought to expand and challenge the definition of "art." He currently lives in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, with his wife and collaborator, Louise Chance Baxter&. A painter, photographer, sculptor, mixed-media artist, installation artist, filmmaker, video artist, interventionist, and performance artist, he is a pioneer of conceptual art in Canada. Baxter& uses his work to undertake cultural commentary and explore art as "visual sensibility information" - his expression for the word art - which underscores how his work has always been informed by Marshall McLuhan (the influential Canadian media theorist), to such an extent that Baxter& has been considered the Marshall McLuhan of visual arts in Canada. Information technology, landscape, art as a commodity, the environment, and ecological concerns are recurring themes in his work. These predominant themes in BAXTER's work are often addressed with wit, parody, satire and wordplay.
.png)
SUNG-HYUN YOO
TIME LAPSE
From May 30th to July 1st 2017
Exibition Curator : Yann Toma
Opening on May 29th 2017
Sorbonne Artgallery is thrilled to present you the series Time Lapse by SUNG-HYUN YOO, from May 30th to July 1st 2017.
Temporality as a Mark of Absence
The sepia tone of the photographs, inspired by the daguerreotype, situates the landscapes and fragments in an unreal temporality. A series of flash images then unfolds. This staging of a nostalgic imaginary prompts the viewer to question the value of the subject matter presented to us. These photographed fragments, seemingly innocuous, clandestine, sometimes formless, are transformed, through the superimposition of temporal layers, into mysterious treasures of contained richness. These vestiges of a fictional and hazy past represent the profound void left by the division of Korea, within each individual, and far beyond its borders. Sung-Hyun Yoo's photographs explore the neglected past of South Korea, which, although deeply traditional, has embraced cutting-edge technology, as if to avoid looking back. They question our own relationship to meaning when photography becomes retrospective fiction.
Overcoming Divisions to Rebuild
Amidst the turmoil of contemporary Korea, Sung-Hyun Yoo ascends the mountains and reveals to us an aesthetic of serenity. This act of disengagement is particularly understandable within a context of division: that of the expatriate artist, and that of a country fractured in two. This aesthetic reveals a wish for Korea's future: to foster a serene and expansive vision of consciousness through contact with the energy of stones. To look at its past, accept it, and rebuild.
Sung-Hyun Yoo's stay in South Korea in 2017 was part of the Master de Création Internartionale (Master in Arts and Vision - MAVI) program at the UFR04, Arts and Sciences of Art department of the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. This master's program allows students to spend a semester abroad developing an artistic creation project. All projects can be found on the MAVI website.
Born in Seoul in 1976, Sung-Hyun Yoo has lived and worked in Paris for nine years. His exploration of these forgotten and difficult-to-access ruins in his native country thus appears as a quest for origins. It is not simply a matter of going back in time, but of evoking the discontinuities between present, past, and future. This ascent backward, like a search for the "first principle" in metaphysics, symbolized by climbing the mountains where the ruins are located, is part of a search for self and a quest for what is, by drawing on what is no more. Sung-Hyun Yoo's work thus evokes the idea of a "beyond" of living memory, a place where we no longer go, as suggested by the off-screen spaces in the photographs, and opens up new images of contemporary Korean thought.
SITE DE L'ARTISTE
COMMUNIQUÉ DE PRESSE
AFFICHE DE L'EXPO
PRESSE
THAT'S PAINTING PRODUCTIONS
RÉFECTION
From April 19th to May 15th 2017
Exibition Curator : Yann Toma
Opening on April 18th 2017
Sorbonne Artgallery is thrilled to present you the exhibition Réfection by THAT'S PAINTING PRODUCTIONS, from April 19th to May 15th 2017.
The painting and decorating company THAT’S PAINTING Productions, established in the United States since 1989, carried out a restoration of the gallery's frame panels from April 3rd to 5th, 2017. These panels have been part of the Sorbonne Artgallery initiative since January 2017, which presents a new artistic intervention each month. The commission given to THAT’S PAINTING is part of a program featuring artist-business partnerships that explore the economic and social implications of our society's relationship with art.
"The very unusual space of the Sorbonne Artgallery isn't really the kind of space That's Painting is used to. There are no walls, only rectangular white panels in metal frames. When Yann Toma invited me to exhibit there, I couldn't see the point of bringing in That's Painting Productions, a house painting company, in such a context. The melamine-coated wood panels wouldn't take paint, or at least, it wouldn't last long. However, closer inspection revealed that these panels were covered in residues of various adhesives - transparent tape, double-sided tape, pieces of torn posters - and were in serious need of cleaning. That's Painting Productions' intervention then made perfect sense: to carry out a meticulous restoration of the panel surfaces.
Indeed, since 1988, the painting company has been offering its clients, both individuals and businesses, painting services." institutions, quality building painting services. And the condition I set for myself, when offered an exhibition in a gallery or museum, is to only intervene to meet a genuine need for building painting. It seems ridiculous to me to simply apply a coat of paint to the wall of a gallery or museum room and say that That's Painting did the job. This would go against the ethics of the company, which operated for nearly thirty years as a true building painting company, employing up to twelve professional painters, and serving its clients first in Houston, then in Los Angeles."
Bernard Brunon, on his presentation at the Sorbonne Artgallery, April 2017
Bernard Brunon founded his house painting company in 1989 in Houston, Texas. The company's creation was the result of a gradual process of research aimed at "painting without producing an image." Trained in Claude Viallat's studio at the Marseille School of Fine Arts, Brunon takes to its extreme the deconstruction of the painting undertaken by the Supports/Surfaces avant-garde in the 1970s. His studio work, an attempt to paint outside the codes of representation, led him to house painting: he came to the realization that when he repainted a wall, even though the gestures, tools, and materials were the same, the result was a painting that was not a picture. This painting existed in the space of reality, and not in the representational space of painting. Through his practice and his company, Bernard Brunon integrates art into life, eliminating the boundary between the figurative and the representational.
Efficient business organization also deconstructs the cliché of the romantic artist, often contrasted by the collective imagination with the capitalist organization of the company. After initially working more or less alone, Bernard Brunon was led to structure the activities of THAT’S PAINTING Productions. It operates like any other house painting company, employing up to a dozen painters in 2005. Whether the client is an individual, a gallery director, or an exhibition curator, the approach remains the same: THAT’S PAINTING Productions offers meticulous work at an affordable price, delivered on time. Bernard Brunon’s company thus questions the relationship between the artist, the viewer, and the art market to the economic and symbolic value of the works produced.
Currently, the company is considering its dissolution with the retirement of its founder, Bernard Brunon. Legal advice on the prospects for continuing the artistic activity has been sought from law professors and students at the University, and will be available in the gallery.
JÉRÔME DUPIN
TRAVIOLES & APPROXIMATIONS
From March 6th to 29th 2017
Exibition Curator : Yann Toma
Opening on March 6th 2017
Sorbonne Artgallery is thrilled to present you the exhibitionTravioles & Approximations by JÉRÔME DUPIN, from March 6th to 29th 2017.
“Dancing in Chains”
Inserted, embedded within the gallery’s thick Baroque frames, the painting attempts to escape its framing. By integrating the massive, static frames in which his works are housed, the artist questions the relationship between artistic flourishing and constraint. While the temptation to “break free from the frame,” or perhaps to remain within it, is exciting—even camouflaged, the frame would still be present—Jérôme Dupin thus proposes, in a very basic way, to explore the possibilities of a potential freedom within the frame. While this question is expressed in painting, it reflects a broader reflection, also found in his video productions (Captchapoem, 2014).
Through Painting
Approximations, Jérôme Dupin's painting doesn't command, doesn't respond. It proposes, suggests, and perhaps inspires another, slightly off-kilter vision of the world. The lopsided and the unstable are aesthetic and political choices. The forms in this series move without reference points, without coordinates. They can disorient the viewer: who, therefore, is off-kilter? The painting or us? Using geometric shapes and a single color, Jérôme Dupin doesn't seek the spectacular. The virtue of his art is to leave space for thought.
TRAVIOLES ET APPROXIMATIONS
One day, a few years ago now, a prominent figure in the art world told me, in response to a dossier I had sent him simply to have the opportunity to meet him, that he would be very surprised if one could base a painter's approach on both American Minimalism and Supports/Surfaces.
This opinion initially intrigued me, then ultimately led me to commit myself, almost to the point of certainty, that everything was indeed possible between these two "movements," even outside of them, or perhaps even around them.
Although in a prime position to know, this important figure could not have been unaware that I drew inspiration for my work from Duchamp as much as from Matisse, not to mention Viennese Actionism, Fluxus, Land Art, or BMPT...
I believe it was at that moment that I understood that the disciplinary obsession with categories was a truly damaging handicap for artists, particularly in France.
Some thirty-five years after this episode, I also realize the extent to which the obsession with commentary has constructed a very particular approach to and dissemination of art.
Ultimately, these two obsessions reduce art, its dissemination, and its reception to a mere cultural mode, whose gradual shift toward entertainment is now quite well known.
Thus, by constantly categorizing, disciplining, and commenting, we have probably fostered (at least) two kinds of art: that of an increasingly speculative market (thanks to Thatcher and Saatchi) and that of a "small" market, if not a non-market—condemning artists either to live like rock stars or to barely survive rather than truly making a living from their art.
Personally, I have no complaints. Indeed, I am interested neither in success, nor in the market, nor in survival.
What calls me to the studio, insofar as I have ideas for making a few small things, is simply my life.
I don't know what my purpose is. Nor what purpose my creations serve.
All I know is that I only do something when it becomes necessary, one way or another. Of course, after all these years of doing things, I can more or less understand what I've developed, following a more or less guiding thread. But I'm convinced that I haven't actually planned anything. Worse, I've always refused to plan anything at all. Out of a concern for personal freedom, no doubt.
Freedom that obviously doesn't exist. But a freedom I need to imagine in order to "suspend" reflection, theory, history, culture, to finally do something. To carry out a task.
Thus, each session in the studio requires real preparation beforehand. The idea is never to do anything halfway or halfway. It's a matter of respecting time. The time allotted to me. Day to day, as well as in the long term. And I'm short on it.
For me, artistic work comes at this price.
Refusing the market as it has become and refusing to starve to death for art as it has become in its current state of existence.
We're not going to sell works of art like mere cans of food, are we? Nor are we going to commit suicide because we're not recognized for our true worth.
Another possibility, if one is unhappy, is of course to do something other than art.
Of course, all of this remains very approximate and slightly off-kilter, as it should be.
Jérôme Dupin
January 2017
Born in 1956, Jérôme Dupin studied art at the Villa Arson in Nice before becoming an art director in several advertising agencies. In 1992, he left everything—his job and Paris—to return to painting. His artistic interests draw as much from the legacy of Duchamp and Matisse, Hantaï, as from Viennese Actionism, Fluxus, Land Art, BMPT, and Supports/Surfaces. His work, exhibited in France and abroad, is included in private and public collections. Alongside his artistic practice, he has taught at art schools and is currently an inspector at the Directorate General for Artistic Creation of the Ministry of Culture and Communication.
DANA WYSE
JESUS HAD A SISTER PRODUCTIONS 1997-2017
From February 6th to March 4th 2017
Exibition Curator : Yann Toma
Opening on February 6th 2017
Sorbonne Artgallery is thrilled to present you the exhibition in honor of the twentieth anniversary of the artist company Jesus Had A Sister Productions created by Dana Wyse, from February 6th to March 4th 2017.
The exhibition celebrates the 20th anniversary of the artist-run company Jesus Had A Sister Productions, founded in 1997 by Canadian artist Dana Wyse. The exhibition features a selection of eighteen photographs of pills, presented in pairs. Several pills are also displayed in their original packaging in a gallery showcase. The exhibition is organized in collaboration with the France-Canada National Association, which will host it at its gallery in February.
Dana Wyse's pills confront us with our buried desires for social success and the normative stereotypes of our society. Through her artist-run business, Jesus Had A Sister Productions, Wyse has integrated her artwork-products into our commercial networks. Sold at an affordable price, these therapeutic solutions can be purchased on a large scale in museum shops, some supermarkets, and online. By incorporating these art products into our everyday economic reality, she blurs the traditional conceptions that establish and sacralize the artist and confer a particular value upon their work.
Born in 1965 in Vancouver, Canada, Dana Wyse is an artist and writer. Internationally recognized, her work has been exhibited from Canada to Europe and Latin America. Her pills and remedies are sold in major contemporary art museums. In 2007, she published the bestseller *How To Turn Your Addiction to Prescription Drugs into a Successful Art Career* with Éditions du Regard. Dana Wyse is part of the dynamic research team Art&Flux (ACTE).
