Conversation Pieces - a Suspendedspacesproposal
Exhibition fromNovember 6 to December 20, 2013
On the invitation of theGalerie ArtEssai, Rennes
Direction Denis Briand and Marion Hohlfeldt
BasmaAlsharif, (Palestine), MarwaArsanios (Lebanon), Francois Bellenger (France), Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh (Palestine), Maider Fortuné (France), Hatem Imam (Lebanon),
Lamia Joreige (Lebanon), Valérie Jouve (France), GhassanMaasri (Lebanon),
Mira Sanders (Belgium)
«Conversation pieceis a term for an informal group portrait, especiallythosepainted in Britain in the 18th century, beginning in the 1720s. They are distinguished by theirportrayal of the group apparentlyengaged in genteel conversation or someactivity, veryoftenoutdoors. Typically the group willbemembers of a family, but friendsmaybeincluded, and some groups are of friends, members of a society or hunt, or someothergrouping. (…) The phrase "conversation piece" lateracquired a differentmeaning. It came to refer to objectsthatwereperceived to beinterestingenough to spark conversation about them. Theyprovide a stimulus for prop-based conversation openers. The original conversation piecessometimesdepicted a group united in conversation about an object, whichwouldtypicallybe an item linked to science or scholarship.»
At the origin of the exhibition Conversation Pieces - a Suspendedspacesproposal, thereis a collective project. Or rather a projectproposed by a collective, whohave worked for severalyearsfrom«stifled»territoriesbecauseof political, economic and historicalconflict. Thesesensitive, fragile, temporaryspaces, makesthe artisticglancenecessary,relevant and legitimate. First was the closedcity of Famagusta in Cyprus, and then the site of the International Fair of Tripoli in Lebanon, unfinishedproject of the Brazilianarchitect Oscar Niemeyer. This construction startedin 1962 couldneverbecompleted, and the beginning of the civil war in 1975 has frozen the project in itscurrent state.Originalysettled on the fringe of the city, the Fairisnowin a more central position, overtaken by the urbandevelopment of Lebanon’s second city in size. The gardensthat host the buildings are wellmaintained, but the site remainsclosed, sometimesinfiltrated by childrenfrom thesurroundingneighbourhoods, sometimesopened to the public on the occasion of rare events.
Tworesidencesaccompanied by conferenceshave been organized by the collective in Lebanon, in 2011 and 2013. About thirty, bothLebanese and international theoreticians and artists,participated. The exhibition in Renneswillbe an opportunity to mark a new stage in thismigrant, economicallyadjustedproject, wich one of themain operators are the conversations[1]that are constantlyalive among the participants, and whichextendinto the work and experimentation of new artisticforms.
The exhibitionwilltake the form of a work in progressbuilt by the artistsfrom the distance, little by little : a scenario punctuated by realizations, deposit of documents, words and testimoniesdistributed in the space, performances and temporaryscreenings, etc. At the opening on November6, 2013, the gallerywillbemainlyoccupied by twoelementswhichwillarticulate the scenario of the upcoming exhibition: a very large table whichwill cross the gallery, similar to a banquet table, and a film realized by the collective based on interviews conductedfrom the distance on Skype in September 2013, witheach of the artists. Onlyexcerptsfromthese long conversations willbeedited in the film, but the interviews in theirentiretywillbeavailablefor thevisitors.
The formof the table isvery close to the one thatgreeted the guestsduring the Suspendedspacesweek of residence in Beirut, atMansion. Mansionis a large house occupied by artistswhich hosts activities of creation and of reflection, but itisalso an art project byitselfwhere the protection of a building (in the Al Zarifneighbourhood),promised todemolition, due to real estatespeculationbecame a space of resistance and poetry. This table, justlike in Mansion,willplay a central role, starting point and space of distribution of the exchanges. As the progress of the scenarioevolves, betweenNovember 6 and December 20, 2013, the table willbe more and more occupied.
The «film»realized by the Suspendedspacescollective willbereleasedat the opening of the exhibition and willform a sort of preface. Truemodus operandi of the project, the conversations conducted by the members of the collective witheach of the 10 artists of the exhibition, focus on the workthatwillbepresentedin Rennes. But more generallyitfocuses on the notion of Suspendedspaces and how itisinterpretatedand resonnateswiththe artisticwork and the geopoliticalcontext of each of the participants.
The «opening» of the exhibition willtake place on December12, more than a monthafteritspreview. The previousweek (fromDecember9 to December12), the artistswillstay in Rennes, to finish their installations,finalize a project, organize a workshop, propose meetings, screenings, and continue the conversation around the long table. The exhibition willattempt to make perceptible the processof the Suspendedspacesproject, based on confidence and exchange, the taste for experimentation, the strength and the risk of the collective.
Jan Kopp, Daniel Lê, Françoise Parfait, Éric Valette
[1]Grant Kester, Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art, University of CaliforniaPress, 2004.