“Expression is the gift from the world as many to the world as one.”
(AN Whitehead, Modes of Thought)
The need to find modes and spaces of expression, which is shared not only by artists but by all those who compose society, is one of the most powerful forces for art and invention. D’un autre monde starts with an intuition, which is that we are witnessing a transformation of the contemporary landscape, in which the question of expression is central. After a long moment dominated by a constant rereading – whether questioning or extending – of the tools forged by modern art, an exhaustion of the issues of modernity has led artists to turn to other sources. In a world saturated with images and with history, artists are looking to more abstract and more elementary forms of energy to liberate new possibilities of expression. Actions, traces, totems, ceremonies and invocations are among the tools used by this generation of artists to put forward displacements that are more like alternatives than critique. This is not about going back to stable values, or a quest of authenticity: it is a new negotiation between man and his environment. The impermeable frontiers of modernity are being replaced by a porosity that makes it possible to create singularities by opening them to the exterior, to the search for shared worlds.
The set of exhibitions will form a kind of landscape that is at once coherent and multifaceted. The Printemps de Septembre is spread around the city of Toulouse and its environs, but each part of this edition will be worked in relation to the others in order to tell a story, to create a climate rather than a discourse. There will be few images, few words, but lots of forms and materials, emotions and sensations. For what the artists chosen for this edition have in common is that they do not represent the world as it is, but propose abstract, imaginary worlds grounded in elsewheres and in other ways. This year, the festival will try to strengthen its relation to the territory in which it is rooted by opening artistic practices to collaboration with other social spaces: for example, Maroussia Rebecq with the Occitània festival, and Oscar Tuazon with the Europhilosophie department at Toulouse University. Sophie von Hellermann, Fredrik Værslev and Ei Arakawa will also work on situations that are specific to the city. At Les Abattoirs, the approach will be that of painting (with, among others, Josh Smith, Joe Bradley, Alex Hubbard, Christopher Wool, Sergej Jensen, Matias Faldbakken, and Paul Thek). At the Château d’Eau there will be an exhibition of tapestries by Dom Robert – animist symphonies made at the abbey of En Calcat. An “experimental school,” designed by Oscar Tuazon, where artists and theoreticians will come and give “lessons,” will open in the Salle des Pèlerins at the Hôtel-Dieu. In order to offer deeper access to the world of each artist, the exhibitions have been conceived as a series of monographs, concentrated or fragmented around the festival.
Anne Pontégnie, Artistic Director, 2011
The artists and exhibition projects
Ei Arakawa Édouard Baribeaud Karla Black Joe Bradley Wim Catrysse Pauline Curnier Jardin Edith Dekyndt Lucile Desamory Dom Robert (Guy de Chaunac Lanzac) Jim Drain L’École de Stéphanie Matias Faldbakken Dominique Figarella Luke Fowler Aurélie Gelade Isa Genzken Giraud & Siboni Tatsumi Hijikata Thomas Houseago Alex Hubbard Cameron Jamie Sergej Jensen Chris Johanson Mark Leckey Klara Liden Annette Messager William Pope.L Maroussia Rebecq (Andrea Crews collective) Josh Smith Simon Starling Paul Thek Sarah Tritz Oscar Tuazon Fredrik Værslev Sophie von Hellermann Christopher Wool Haegue Yang ...
Nocturnes and Soirées Nomades from 23 - 24 - 30 Septembre and 1st Octobre 2011
