Post Monument Study Day: Art in situation - when the work takes place
The questions of the presence and practice of art on the scale of a site, a city or a territory, though ancestral, are regularly posed in new terms. On the one hand, the spatial and temporal opening up of the places of the work since the 1960s (land art, site specific, in situ art, urban art) has inaugurated the enlargement of the field of sculpture and art, sometimes with an institutional detachment of artistic productions. On the other hand, since the 2000s, the plebiscite of contemporary artistic practices in the public space by elected officials, companies and the public as well as the increased visibility of works, in situ and online, have contributed to the emergence of new practices of creation, production, exhibition and frequentation of art.
Within the framework of the "Fresco & Art in Situation" programme, the study day proposes to explore the diversity of knowledge and know-how mobilised in art in situation according to three temporalities: before, during and after the creation of works.
"Before" corresponds to the political, territorial, cultural and research and development phase of the artistic project, which is represented, for example, by the new practices of cultural urbanism, site studies, impact studies, urban explorations or commissioned programmes.
"During" corresponds to the process of creation with materials, old and new, sketches, prototypes, integration of constraints of various kinds, production and installation on site, etc.
"After" corresponds to the reception, documentation, mediatisation, maintenance, restoration or alterations, destruction, reinterpretations, heritage.
PROGRAMME
9:30-9:45: Introduction to the day and presentation of the sector
Session #1: Art in the making of territories / art, territory and commission
9.45-11am Observatorium (Rotterdam) and Arpentère (Paris) / "Public art for public life: working methods
Since 1997, Observatorium has created more than 50 permanent artworks in public space in New York, Berlin, London, Krasnoyarsk, Nantes, Aalst, the Ruhr, Munich, the port of Rotterdam and numerous locations in the Netherlands and Germany. Active since 1997, Observatorium is a creative workshop known for its large-scale interventions combining sculpture and place-making. Andre Dekker (Delft, 1956), co-founder of Observatorium, is a Dutch visual artist, working as a designer, draughtsman and scenographer for art that reshapes public spaces, at the heart of sustainable urban and landscape transitions. In 2020, Andre Dekker co-founded Lesnini Field, a 22 hectare wilderness and art site in California. He is currently working with Observatorium on two large-scale public art projects: the campus square and sculptural proposals in Grenoble and an iconic mound in the salt marshes of the Wadden Sea, the Netherlands. In spring 2022, the architecture and art publisher nai010 will publish its Public Art for Public Life, the second book on Observatorium's public art. Presentation in dialogue with the Arpentère studio, which brings together a team of landscape architects, urban planners, graphic designers and mediators involved in urban, formal, social and functional issues. Arpentère relies on a network of skills in urban ecology, engineering, hydraulics and programming.
11am-12pm Pascal Le Brun-Cordier (Sorbonne School of Arts - Paris 1)
Cultural urbanist, artistic director, associate professor at the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, head of the Master's degree in cultural projects in the public space since 2005.
Artistic creation in situ and in vivo: methodological focus on cultural urbanism and citizen commissions.
What does it mean to create in situ? What does in vivo creation imply? What do we call art in common? What place can artistic creation have in the urban fabric? What does the notion of cultural urbanism cover? How does the citizen's commission differ from the classic commission? These are some of the questions that Pascal Le Brun-Cordier will answer, based on his experience as artistic director and head of the Master's programme Cultural Projects in the Public Space.
12:00-12:30 Questions and discussions: "Natural environments, fragile and protected sites, historical monuments, sensitive urban sites: how to create under constraints?
Session #2: Art in conflict and post-conflict situations (1:30-5pm)
"Since Antiquity, politics has been at the heart of the social existence of sculpture, the result of decisions perceived as the expression of a verticality of the authorities that initiate, encourage or welcome it in a given society - and this, whatever the type of regime concerned: democracies or dictatorships. Bertrand Tillier
During this session, we will be interested in the forms, artistic strategies, visual and media devices conditioning the elaboration, the reception or the reinterpretation of public art in conflict or post-conflict situations, whether it goes back decades (colonialism in particular) or is inscribed in the most burning, painful current events (current wars, in Africa, in Ukraine...) . Artistic interventions, additive elements or subtractive actions, physical or digital "counter-monuments", sometimes paradoxically "reactivate" the sculptures/monuments and aim to allow a contextualisation, a rereading or a rewriting of historical legacies and (me)facts through aesthetic experiences. This double movement of destruction and protection of the statues constitutes the starting point of the proposed papers and of the discussions of the afternoon.
13h30-14h15 Kristina Solomoukha, (artist/curator/teacher at Ensad, Paris and EESAB, Rennes site) Why do constructions hide their functions?
What is the purpose of a monument? Is a parade, a demonstration, a military march or a religious procession the same thing? What are the artistic tools to formulate questions about the territory of politics? Kristina Solomoukha will present examples of collaborative works and workshops that explore urban space in France, Ukraine, Georgia and Estonia.
Born in 1971 in Kiev, Ukraine, Kristina Solomoukha is a visual artist who lives and works in France. Her installations, drawings and videos have been widely exhibited in France and internationally, and her works are included in various public collections. Nourished by an interest in anthropology and history, her work questions the political and social dimension of images, and often takes a collaborative form. Since the escalation of the war in Ukraine, Kristina Solomoukha and her association La maison de l'ours, have set up numerous actions to help Ukrainian artists and art students.
14:15-15:00 Margot Grygielewicz (philosopher/curator, teacher at the École Européenne Supérieure D'image) "Carthago servanda est" - "Carthage must be saved
Starting from the famous phrase "Carthago servanda est", contradicting the destruction as the natural element of history, the one that resonates in "Carthago delenda est". These two sentences sum up the dialectic of the disappearance of this city and of the Punic civilisation at the hands of Scipio the African, but also of its later rebirth. After years of splendour and prosperity, it was razed to the ground and wiped off the map; its abandoned ruins faded with time. It re-emerged in a new place years later. The complex parameters of contemporary life and cities have certainly forged a type of relationship to memory, closer to the idea of preservation, safeguarding and heritage. Our desire to enrich the list of the seven wonders of the world, which began in antiquity, pushes us to continue to protect but also to re/create, because our heritage is not preceded by any testament.
In the course of our investigations, accompanied by Ukrainian artists and in homage to the Bolshevik movement, we will visit sites and cities that are emblems of contemporary destruction, such as Maïdan Square in Kiev, Marioupol, Detroit, the Vijenica Library in Sarajevo and Palmyra in Syria.
15h15-16h Claire Garcia (art historian, Beaux-Arts de Paris) - "Degradations, deboulonnages, et après?
The objective of this talk is not to provide peremptory solutions but rather to evoke specific cases that allow us to put into context the current debunking of statues, an attitude that is not new. It will also be a question of reflecting on possible actions and leading us to think about a new monumentality, the beginnings of which are in the making in the most recent productions. Whatever the solutions chosen: transferring to a museum, maintaining in situ, the question of limits is always present because moving / transforming / replacing: an act of protection or vandalism?
16h-16h45: Round table / moderation Sabrina Dubbeld, PhD in History of Contemporary Art, associate researcher at the University of Paris-Nanterre)
Doctor in History of Contemporary Art, associate researcher at the University of Paris-Nanterre
Pascale Marthine Tayou and Olivier Blanckart, artists in charge of studios at the Beaux-Arts de Paris, will participate in this round table
The "Fresco & Art in Situation" programme is supported by La Compagnie de Phalsbourg, La Ville de Fontainebleau, L'Apes - Groupe Action Logement and RM Yachts.
