what you see is what you guess

Works by Christian Andersson, Attila Csörgö, Ceal Floyer, Christoph Keller, Steven Pippin, Julius Popp, Arcangelo Sassolino.

Until where perception can inform consciousness? On the other hand, at which time does knowledge correct perception? From September 14th until November 18th, FRAC Champagne-Ardenne will present an exhibition curated by Italian art critic Alessandra Pace.

What You See Is What You Guess/WYSIWYG makes echo with the acronym for “What You See Is What You Get”, often used in computing to describe a system in which content during editing appears very similar to the final product. Indeed, we interpret appearances according to their causal relations and are brought to make reasonable and fast predictions on becoming to specific actions. Waiting for effects and consequences fills the intervals of perception, so we take for reality objects or events created of any part in our mind, even before they shape true forms.

But as art is tricky, it exploits our credulity, walks us and dismounts logics of thought of the similarities. The What You See Is What you Guess/WYSIWYG exhibition is the occasion to discover artists very little seen in France whose attention with scientific research crosses a questioning on the representation and perception. This exhibition invites the visitor to enter not only the conscience of work but also its machinery, by crossing the obstacles of perception, of which the greatest is an a priori.

Thus, Arcangelo Sassolino proposes a metallic spider/crab (Untitled, 2006) whose movements and sudden starts are at the infinitesimal border of living and mechanics. Ceal Floyer (Projection, 1997) and Christian Andersson (F for Fake, 2002) bring into play the subterfuges related to luminous projection. Like the workshop of an alchemist, the overlap of forms is materialized in a poetic way by Attila Csörgö in his 1993 sculpture Three Solids; while Julius Popp plays with forms made of non-solid materials, using a technological device that slowly becomes aware of its own body (bit.flow, 2004- 2006). As for Christoph Keller (Rundum Alexanderplatz, 1996) and Steven Pippin (Laundromat-Locomotion [Horse & Rider], 2007), they create works where perception is disturbed by photographic anamorphoses.

mircea cantor / ciel variable

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From May 4th until July 15th, FRAC Champagne-Ardenne will present the first solo exhibition in France of the Romanian artist, Mircea Cantor. In order to envisage the possibility of the end of the world, the artist has named this exhibition Ciel variable (Changing Skies). The future’s unpredictability suggests at once the Apocalypse and potential renewal. This is reflected in his sculpture/scale model, Monument for the End of the World, in which the bell chimes overhanging the model of a big city can be set off by a possible disaster.

From video and photography to prints and installations, Mircea Cantor’s work unfolds in a diversity of media without repeating itself. Each artwork assumes the aspect of a manifesto; each picture is justified. By proposing a personal response to a reality saturated with sometimes oppressive signs, Mircea Cantor upsets and reverses conventions, like his painted canvas of a nest made of apparently dead twigs, which bud once again. This cycle of disappearance and renewal is constantly brought into play in Cantor’s work, reminding us of our frantic racing against time in contemporary society.

Neither a traditional retrospective, nor a show of only new artworks, this exhibition is a way for the artist to offer a new reading of his art. The works occupy all of the Frac’s galleries, revealing the materialization of Mircea Cantor’s non-linear conception of cosmogony; a universe encompassing all futures, all pasts, all potentialities. Untitled, 2006, for example, shows part of a torn headline of Le Monde, to which the artist added two ‘s’ in red marker. It is a sensitive allegory of the fragility of our convictions when confronted with the infinite plurality of worlds, deepening in turn our uncertainty and anxiety. Very often, as an attentive observer of society and cultures, Mircea Cantor places himself at the crossroads between worlds, allowing for the coming together of differing mentalities. He is preoccupied with the alchemy of ideologies in the infinite movement of thought.

Mircea Cantor gained international attention at the 2003 Venice Biennale, at the 2006 Berlin Biennale, the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2006, and at the Yvon Lambert Gallery (Paris and New York). Winner of the 2004 Ricard Prize, he is an outstanding figure among Eastern Europe’s emerging artists. Cantor grew up in Romania during the Communist era, and views the current governments, as well as illusions of Western neo-conservatism, with lucidity and distance. Cantor is also heavily involved in the Romanian artistic scene, and is a co-editor of Version magazine.

Mircea Cantor has been invited by the FRAC Champagne-Ardenne for an artist residency at the Chaudronnerie in the Val-de-Murigny high school in Rheims. During this period, he will produce a 16mm film showing the incandescence, then dissolution, of the shadow of a formless flag of indeterminate origin. The very fact of its being unidentifiable renders it emblematic, on a universal scale, of the end of a regime and the renewal of society.

In conjunction with this exhibition, the first monograph of Mircea Cantor will be published by the FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, in partnership with the Yvon Lambert Gallery, Paris / New York. Due out in the Fall.

nicolas boulard / le temps qui reste

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Le travail de Nicolas Boulard se déploie sous des formes hétérogènes : clips vidéo, photos numériques, sculptures inspirées de mobiliers, jeux, gonflables... Doublement diplômé en art et en design à l’Ecole Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg, Nicolas Boulard a été «résident» du Collège Invisible, réseau d’enseignement artistique sur Internet, créé par Paul Devautour. Il collabore régulièrement avec de grands talents de la musique électronique tels que Console, Joachim Montessuis ou Ikko Yamagochi et réalise des clips qui interrogent chacun à leur façon, la persistance obsédante avec laquelle les signes et les images de communication marquent la conscience.

Nicolas Boulard s’est fait connaître par un travail très singulier sur le vin. Authentique spécialiste, issu lui-même d’une famille du champagne, il réalise des vins et projets vinicoles pour lesquels la générosité, la convivialité, le sens du partage, rencontrent une position critique, parfois provocatrice, mettant en jeu les fragilités et les préjugés de cette industrie. Le H 20 ou H2 O, suivant sa prononciation, est un vin sans raisin, uniquement constitué d’eau et des correcteurs de goût plus ou moins autorisés par la loi. Le Grand Vin de Reims, oeuvre - multiple créée pour l’Association des Amis du FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, est le fruit de vendanges sur la totalité des «parcelles» de la ville de Reims : grandes surfaces, épiceries diverses, voire même les vignes décoratives des ronds-points.

Que ce soit pour les films, les objets, les vins, c’est avant tout l’œuvre d’un hacker de la pensée, qui s’infiltre et pénètre les systèmes ou les savoir-faire, en disloque les composantes structurelles pour en proposer des alternatives et d’autres perspectives. L’exposition Le temps qui reste, référence à un texte de Giorgio Agamben qui montre comment une œuvre du passé ne parvient à sa lisibilité qu’à certains moments de l’Histoire, aborde la question de la durée, montre au travers du vin que l’œuvre d’art elle-même est l’objet d’un lent mûrissage, qu’elle fait l’expérience du temps et inscrit ses propres cycles temporels.

En conjonction avec l’exposition, le FRAC Champagne-Ardenne et les éditions Analogues, publient un numéro de Semaine sur le travail de Nicolas Boulard, comprenant un texte et un projet original de l’artiste américain Ben Kinmont.

francisco ruiz de infante (avec christian sébille) / tables amplifiées (bestiaire)

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