The Contemporary, The Common : Art in A Globalizing World
Links between art, contemporaneity and the common lie at the heart of Chantal Pontbriand’s writings as a critic, editor and curator. This collection of essays written in the first decade of the XXIst C looks at different issues that come up in the context of examining what binds the practice of art to issues in the contemporary world, and how that bond articulates itself. That of the being-in-common is at the forefront of these whether one considers globalisation, work, war and other social phenomena, as well as the development of the art practices and their modes of implementation. Other ways of seeing, understanding and making appear, and these innovative pathways are the author’s main concern. She describes contemporaneity as a flow, a performative being in opposition to modernism or postmodernism : a space-time being that is never fixed nor should it be fixated. Artists’ works here nourish case studies for understanding what is at play in our current condition of being-in-the-world, with the impact of politics and economy. The place of the body is always of concern, the body as thermometer of the world being lived-in, lived-with, in a dynamics of change and sharing. Essays on artists such as Claire Fontaine, Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno, Ion Grigorescu, Carsten Höller, Mike Kelley, Sigalit Landau, Rabih Mroué, Yvonne Rainer, and Rirkrit Tiravanija appear in the collection, together with her thoughts on the seminal issues stirring the field of contemporary art.
« Since founding PARACHUTE magazine in the 1970s, Chantal Pontbriand has been at the forefront of debates that describe the shifting spaces and disciplines of contemporary art. With this new book, Pontbriand’s incisive brilliance and commitment to art and ideas shine through. This is a book that poses the most urgent critical questions about the trajectories of art, artists, and public in a global world. »
—Okwui Enwezor, director of Haus der Kunst, Munich
« Chantal Pontbriand expertly bridges worlds and concepts, art and community, the singular and the common, and more. This is a major contribution to our understanding of what is becoming a major force worldwide: the emergent intersection of domains long kept separate. In a second vital conceptual move, Pontbriand unsettles fixities—the contemporary, the modern, the postmodern. What we thought was a given takes on unexpected fluidities, and we see what we had not seen. »
—Saskia Sassen, Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology, Columbia University, and author of A Sociology of Globalization
BIOGRAPHIES
CHANTAL PONTBRIAND is a contemporary art curator and critic. She was a founder of PARACHUTE contemporary art magazine in 1975 and acted as publisher/editor until 2007, publishing 125 issues. Her work is based on the exploration of questions of globalization and artistic heterogeneity. She has curated numerous international contemporary art events: exhibitions, international festivals and international conferences, mainly in photography, video, performance, dance and multimedia installation. After curating several major performance events and festivals, she co-founded the FIND (Festival International de Nouvelle Danse), in Montreal and was president and director from 1982 to 2003. She was appointed Head of Exhibition Research and Development at Tate Modern in London in 2010 and more recently founded PONTBRIAND W.O.R.K.S. [We_Others and Myself_Research_ Knowledge_Systems]. Since 2012, she is Associate Professor at the Sorbonne-Paris IV, in curatorial studies. In 2013, she received the Governor General of Canada Award for an Outstanding Contribution in the Visual and Media Arts.
Selected publications:
Performance, Text(e)s & Documents (ed., PARACHUTE, 1980)_
Geneviève Cadieux. Canada XLVI Biennale di Venezia (commissioner,1990)_
Fragments critiques, Jacqueline Chambon, 1998_
Communauté et Gestes, PARACHUTE, 2000_
Dance : distinct language and Cross-cultural Influences (ed.), PARACHUTE, 2001_
Art et Psychanalyse : Sur ma manière de travailler (co-ed. with Hervé Bouchereau), PARACHUTE, 2002_
PARACHUTE, Essais choisis 1975-2000 (ed.), La Lettre volée, 2004_
Mutations, Perspectives on Photography (ed.), Paris-Photo/Steidel, 2011_
PARACHUTE : The Anthology (ed.), JRP/Ringier, in 4 volumes: Museums and Theory/Performance and Performativity/Photography, Video, New Media/Painting/Sculpture/Installation, Architecture, 2012-2014.
CLAIRE FONTAINE
Claire Fontaine is a Paris-based collective artist, founded in 2004. After lifting her name from a popular brand of school notebooks, Claire Fontaine declared herself a ‘readymade artist’ and began to elaborate a version of neo-conceptual art that often looks like other people’s work. Working in neon, video, sculpture, painting and text, her practice can be described as an ongoing interrogation of the political impotence and the crisis of singularity that seem to define contemporary society today.
Selected exhibitions (solo): Tears, Jewish Museum, New York [2013],1493, Espacio 1414, San Juan, Puerto Rico US [2013], Sell Your Debt, Queen’s Nails, San Francisco US [2013], Redemptions, CCA Wattis, San Francisco US [2013] Carelessness causes fire, Audian Gallery, Vancouver CA [2012], Breakfast starts at midnight, Index, The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation Stockholm SE [2012], M-A-C-C-H-I-N-A-Z-I-O-N-I, Museion, Bolzano IT [2012] P.IG.S., MUSAC, Castilla y León ES [2011], Economies, Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami US [2010], After Marx April, After Mao June, Aspen Art Museum, Colarado US [2009]
Selected exhibitions (group): When Attitudes Became Form Become Attitudes, MOCAD, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit US [2013], Zizhiqu 自治區 (Autonomous Regions), Times Museum of Contemporary Art, Guangzhou CN [2013], Farbe bekennen, Was Kunst macht, Marta Herford, Herford DE [2013], The Deep of the Modern, Manifesta 9, Genk, Limburg BE [2012], Unrest: Revolt Against Reason,
apexart, New York US [2012], 9th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai CN [2012], Re-writing Worlds (Art and Agency) IV Biennial of Moscow RU [2011] and Untitled (12th Istanbul Biennale), XII Biennial of Istanbul TR [2011].
JOANA HADJITHOMAS – KHALIL JOREIGE
Both born in Beirut, Khalil Joreige and Joana Hadjithomas are artists and filmmakers. Together they have made films that garner awards at major international film festivals and are distributed in multiple countries, including Khiam 2000-2007 (awarded the Georges de Beauregard prize at FID 2008), A Perfect Day, and Je Veux Voir (with Catherine Deneuve and Rabih Mroué) Cannes selection in 2008.They regularly show their photo and video installations at museums, biennales and art centers throughout the world. Their works are included in many important public and private collections. Their last project, The Lebanese Rocket Society, includes a documentary film and several installations.
They are also part of the educational committee that created the Homeworks space school at Ashkal Alwan in Lebanon; they founded Abbout Productions with Georges Schoucair and they are part of the adventure of running Métropolis, the only art house cinema in Beirut.
