TextWork celebrates 5 years writing grant
TextWork celebrates 5 years
The publishing platform TextWork is celebrating its fifth anniversary. With 20 essays to its name—20 monographic texts written by foreign authors aboutartists of the French scene—it offers a glimpse of the diversity of a welcoming and generous national scene, and helps foster knowledge of these practices abroad.
Each TextWork is a unique story: that of an encounter between an author who is sometimes far removed from the issues affecting the French scene, and an artist whose work is explored but also disburdened of a certain number of contextual parameters.
Reconsidering an artist’s work from a new and remote point of view—this is the gamble that TextWork is making. It is also that of a long timeframe, making it possible to spend several months getting to know the artist, their oeuvre, their technique.
As curator and critic Charles Aubin notes in a text published in La Traverse, the Fondation Pernod Ricard’s journal: “Forums for art criticism are becoming rare, often eclipsed by everyday cycles of posts and reposts and their likes and comments. By contrast, TextWork is trying a different temporality, detached from the artist’s present time, in order to offer a deep dive into a practice”.
This meticulous, patient research process is usually followed by a long-range or long-distance distribution process and, although its effects are difficult to fully gauge (on the globalised web, in the international realm of criticism), this sometimes produces concrete offshoots: the publication of a monograph (for example, Mike Sperlinger’s TextWork on Laurent Montaron is included in the artist’s monograph published by Mousse); an invitation in the context of an exhibition (that of Jean-Charles Hue at Lulu following the TextWork that Chris Sharp had dedicated to him); and often long-term friendships that weave networks which are more underground yet fertile (like the conversation begun by Nora Sternfeld and Emmanuelle Lainé)…
The project benefits from a consultative editorial committee currently consisting of the critics and curators François Aubart, Virginie Bobin, Thomas Boutoux and Elodie Royer. Pauline Autet is the project’s editorial coordinator.
This publishing project provides a forum for ambitious art criticism, and is part of the Fondation Pernod Ricard’s policy of providing support to the French art scene. It is conceived in partnership with the French Ministry of Culture.
On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the TextWork programme, the Fondation Pernod Ricard is also launching a writing grant to support the work of young authors of the French scene. Applicants have until 1 November 2021 to send an outline of the essay they might dedicate to the French art scene, which will be studied by the TextWork committee. The person selected will be awarded a grant of 1500 euros in order to develop their text.
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