From independence to institutional permaculture

Exhibition curator Guillaume Désanges, now president of the Palais de Tokyo, reflects on his curatorial practice as it has unfolded collectively at the Aubervilliers Laboratories, then through his independent production company WorkMethod, and since 2022 at the Palais de Tokyo. He will in particular address the notion of institutional permaculture (which he developed in his short treatise on institutional permaculture, for a vibrant and productive contemporary creative space) and how this concept can be put into practice in the Palais de Tokyo’s programming, notably in the Norme Corps season, a season that positively explores the notions of vulnerability, fragility, disability and deviations from the norm to offer artistic experiences that challenge preconceptions.

In conversation with Audrey Illouz, Head of Cultural Programming at Beaux-Arts de Paris. 

Guillaume Désanges has been president of the Palais de Tokyo since 2022, and is an exhibition curator and art critic. In 2006, he founded his own production company, Work Method, in Paris. He is a guest curator at the Plateau FRAC Ile-de-France, where he curated the series Érudition concrète (2009–2011). He has developed several lecture series (Le côté obscur de la forme, Une Histoire de la performance en 20 minutes, Signs and Wonders, Vox Artisti, Art: une histoire de la violence) and reading sessions. For around ten years (2013–2022), he was curator of La Verrière, the Hermès Corporate Foundation in Brussels, where he developed exhibition cycles entitled “Des gestes de la pensée”, "Ballistic Poetry" and "Matters of Concern/Matières à panser", for which he programmed, among others, Minia Biabiany, Barbara Chase-Ribout and Myriam Mihindou. He has organised numerous exhibitions at major institutions such as the Generali Foundation in Vienna, the Pérez Art Museum in Miami, the SMAK in Ghent, the Centre Pompidou-Metz, the Palais de Tokyo, Performa in New York, the CAPC in Bordeaux, the Centre d’Art Santa Monica in Barcelona, and the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He has notably curated *L’esprit français, Countercultures, 1969–1989* (2017, La maison rouge – Fondation Antoine de Galbert, Paris), *L’ennemi de mon ennemi* (2018, Palais de Tokyo, Paris), Danse et rituel, une exposition, Centre National de la Danse, Pantin, 2021, ABSALON, ABSALON, CAPC Bordeaux, Institut Valencian d’Art Modern (IVAM), 2021, and is the artistic director of the Salon de Montrouge (2021–2023).

Photo credit: © Palais de Tokyo, 2022