Le Théâtre des Expositions - Season 2, Act 1

For the first time, until 2022, the program of the Palais des Beaux-Arts is entirely conceived, developed and implemented by the students of the "Artists & Exhibition Professions" program and the young curators in residence at the Beaux-Arts de Paris.

Teen Spirit, Fait divers, Écoute voir, Aura par procuration and pendant que d'autres écrasent des nuits encore moites, the original projects of the Théâtre des expositions are presented from October 15 to November 21, 2021.

Each in its own way, these exhibitions traverse time by confronting heritage works from the School's collections with contemporary works by faculty and students.

This joyful experimental laboratory brings into play the very principle of exhibition with forms that are still unspecified, sometimes confusing.

Le Théâtre des Expositions is developed and produced by the first two classes of the "Artists & Exhibition Professions" program:

Class of 2019/2020: Lina Benzerti, Brune Doummar, Milana Dzhabrailova, Sarah Konté, Corentin Leber, Chongyan Liu, Victoire Mangez, Bram Niesz, Yannis Ouaked, Violette Wood, Kenza Zizi.
2019/2020 Curators in Residence: Simona Dvořáková, Marie Grihon, César Kaci, Alice Narcy, Esteban Neveu Ponce.

Class of 2020/2021: Soraya Abdelhouaret, Paul-Emile Bertonèche, Yucegul Cirak, Andreas Fevrier, Daniel Galicia, Alexandre Gras, Raphael Guillet, Thibault Hiss, Hélène Janicot, Elladj Lincy, Anna Oarda, Céleste Philippot, Océane Pilastre, Libo Wei.
Curators in residence 2020/2021: Noam Alon, Antoine Duchenet, Lou Ferrand, Céline Furet, Juliette Hage, Lila Torqueo.

Le Théâtre des Expositions is activated by a live program: performances, concerts, readings, screenings, two-voice visits, sound interventions or radio transmissions. 

Radio Bal, the web radio of the students of the Beaux-Arts de Paris, carried by Lou Olmos Arsenne and Pierlouis Clavel will broadcast regularly in podcast in connection with the Theater of the exhibitions. Among the programs offered will be the quasi-interviews of arthur dokhan, a 5th year student, according to the principle: "everyone knows the answers to my questions. start nowhere, talk about everything, and end there".

Le Théâtre des Expositions is sponsored by Altarea, Moët Henessy and the Association des Amis des Beaux-Arts de Paris.

* Created in 2019, the "Artists & Exhibition Professions" program is directed and coordinated by the exhibitions and public services departments. It allows 3rd and 4th year students to train in production, management, scenography, mediation and all professions related to the presentation and dissemination of art. As part of this training, a residency is offered to young curators who can work for a year at the Beaux-Arts de Paris. The "Artists & Exhibition Professions" program at the Beaux-Arts de Paris is designed in partnership with the Palais de Tokyo.

Acte 1

Teen Spirit

Adolescence begins, but it is not easy to formulate its end. Does it even have an end?

It is a period during which a need to claim our identity takes hold of us in a very intense way. It is a time of life filled with passions, and not only with love. A lot of things are intertwined and we feel the need to assert ourselves, both in our thoughts and in our appearance. It is as much a need to identify with certain things, as a need to distinguish oneself from others. This often translates into a desire to show who we are - who we want to be, but also what we feel, by staging.

Through social networks, in one's own room which then becomes an intimate sanctuary where many things happen. Some details of adolescence haunt us and are actualized through our current self. Memories and artifacts are superimposed on the fictional or real stories conveyed by the works presented.

Evocations of an adolescence whose emotions have permeated the practices of the invited artists.

Based on a proposal by Céline Furet, resident curator at the Beaux-Arts de Paris, in collaboration with Arthur Dokhan, Morgane Ely, Nicole Mera, Molten_c0re (Lucas Hadjam and Baptiste Pérotin), Chalisée Naamani, Maëlle Poirier, Léa Scheldeman, Hélène Tchen & Laure-Anne Tchen, invited artists. 

Fait divers

This exhibition borrows its form from that of a news item. A closed structure which, according to Barthes, refers formally to nothing but itself. It dares to thwart this thematic framework that usually begins and crosses the construction of an exhibition to guide it and signal, distinctly enough, that it opens (like a breach) on a speculative reverse. When it overflows a little too much on the essential of what constitutes an exhibition, it supplants the works, and by extension, the artists.

Here, the curator wants the public to take the risk of deliberately losing this red thread, this Ariadne's thread, in order to consider only the "closed circuit of the exhibition" (the exhibition enclosed in its own terms) by working on the types of relationships that, between the works and their organization in the space of the room, allow it to take shape, to become a body and to stand up. It is a way of putting the work of the artists and his own to the test, in an exhibition that applies itself to inventing and then revealing by clues its own logic. This exhibition becomes a knot or, failing that, a bag of knots, a kind of situation that holds on itself, that contains itself.

Based on an idea by Antoine Duchenet, resident curator of the "Artists & Exhibition Professions" program, with the collaboration of Helin Kahraman and Vilhelm Carlström (students at the École nationale supérieure d'architecture Paris-Malaquais).

Artists presented: Pierre Alferi, Marika Belle, Jérôme Boutterin, Gabriele Chiari, Camille Corréas, Marie de Brugerolle, Jordan Derrien, Juliette Green, Airwan Groove, Ann Veronica Janssens, Romain Moncet, Romain Quattrina, Nicolas Quiriconi, Pauline Rima, Sophie Rogg, Alejandro Villabona

Écoute voir

"It may not be the first time, but it is always surprising to be challenged by a painting, where the author has chosen to include a statement, whatever it may be. Whether the painting tells itself or echoes the prose of the world, whether it questions the act of seeing and representation, whether it questions the existence of the viewer or takes the viewer as a witness to his own, whether it projects the viewer (his opposite number) into the imaginary without resorting to the image, it is always to him, to us, that it addresses itself. Whatever the adopted register - serious or funny, poetic or trivial, charming or provocative -, such a painting arouses a situation of reflexivity and without playing the mirror, it looks at me, that is to say that it returns my glance as much as it concerns me. Even more than another, a painting which speaks waits for an answer; refusing the detour, it does not allow the dodge. Guitemie Maldonado.

Based on an original idea by Sylvie Fanchon and Camila Oliveira Fairclough, adapted for Le Théâtre des expositions by Guitemie Maldonado, professor at Beaux-Arts de Paris and Céline Furet, resident curator at Beaux-Arts de Paris, accompanied by Yucegul Cirak, Andréas Fevrier and Océane Pilastre, students of the "Artists and exhibition professions" program, Emmanuelle Brugerolles, general curator of heritage in charge of the drawings collection at the Beaux-Arts de Paris, as well as Emilien Dreno and Eliott Petit, students at the École nationale supérieure d'architecture Paris-Malaquais, in charge of the exhibition scenography.

Aura par procuration

In Art and Agency, the anthropologist Alfred Gell develops a principle of qualification of the objects of art based on the concept of agentivity, that is to say the power of supposed action of an object, consequence of all the intentions deposited in him: that of the artist, the curator, the spectator, the institution, the collector... A way of examining the power of fascination of the work, henceforth related to the whole of the interactions which preside over its appearance.

But this magnetic or auratic power of the art object can be increased by a certain number of devices and apparatuses. They can be material: architectures, pedestals, showcases, exergues, protections... or immaterial: rumors, criticisms, prohibitions, warnings, ceremonies, pedigrees...

Aura par Procuration, which wants to be an exhibition of these devices and apparatuses, highlights the role of the exhibition and more generally of all that surrounds the work, sublimates it and qualifies it.

Based on an idea by Thierry Leviez, head of exhibitions, developed and realized by Antoine Duchenet, curator in residence, Soraya Abdelhouaret, Paul-Emile Bertoneche, Alexandre Gras, Elladj Lincy, Anna Oarda, Océane Pilastre and Céleste Philppot, students in the "Artists & exhibition professions" program. With the advice of Alice Thomine Berrada, curator of sculptures and paintings, and Emmanuelle Brugerolles, curator of drawings at the Beaux-Arts de Paris

pendant que d'autres écrasent des nuits encore moites

Everything is possible once night falls. Darkness offers the moment when man merges with animal. The shadows mingle in a humidity so heated that it becomes steam. The rules cancel each other out. The laws are swept away with a wave of the hand. The night becomes at the same time a moment and a place: a precise time which exists only in reverse of the day, but also a place, that of a heterotopic elsewhere where clandestinity, underground alliances and outlaws reign. Because of the darkness, it defies order and surveillance.

Outside, there are perhaps nights that take place elsewhere.

It is this second zone that the exhibition is about, while others crush nights that are still moist, that of illicit meetings, networks and forbidden businesses. Each one is suspicious as soon as it seems to thwart something by wandering in the night. What are we looking for if not mistrust? The nocturnal encounter can inevitably become a brutal meeting.

Because of the lack of light, the night closes the eyes: the law is no longer an authority and order has deserted the public space. It thus allows a reversal of the traditionally established power relationships and the constitution of a space of freedom and cunning. Those who flee, those who burn, those who sell, those who should not be there but who are there because they are not elsewhere, these illegal immigrants, these deserters, these stateless people, those who resist and oppose control, the norm, and domestication, this night is for them.

Then things can begin.
Each of the artists' works in the exhibition explores this imaginary fantasy linked to the night and the figure of the outlaw. They all contain a certain form of violence, contained or excessive, which manifests itself here with the help of weapons or the desire to burn. Thus, they evoke in their own way the question of the underground, the wandering, the strategies of escape and the reversal of usually integrated relations of force.

Artists presented: Jade Boudet, Tristan Chevillard, Clédia Fourniau, Jean-Charles Hue, Victoire Inchauspé and Emma Passera.

Curator: Juliette Hage, curator in residence at the Beaux-Arts de Paris.

A fanzine, created from the artists' work, completes the exhibition. It was produced by the duo stein.zine (Delphine Bachelard & Elie Olivennes) at the invitation of the curator.

According to the regulations in force since July 21, you will be asked to show a health pass or proof of a negative RT-PCR or antigen test less than 72 hours old at the time of the inspection. Wearing a mask is mandatory.