Presentation of the Icônes collection
The Icons collection aims to understand the most important figures of contemporary culture in all fields, from literature to sports, from the arts to the sciences, in order to grasp their work in the light of a personal and profound reading.
On this occasion Emmanuel Tibloux and Jean Cléder, who direct the collection, will present the Duchamp by Arnaud Labelle-Rojoux and the Warhol by Eric Loret, alongside the two authors.
Contrary to the dictionary or biography, these works do not aim at exhaustiveness, but rather at extracting figures and themes (gestures, objects, notions…), whose constellation defines as exactly as possible the singularity of the character concerned.
At the same time as a gallery of portraits, the collection thus aims to form an anthology of the objects and uses of modernity, such as they are shaped by the icons.
The « Icons » collection is directed by Jean Cléder, lecturer in general and comparative literature at the University of Rennes 2, and Emmanuel Tibloux, director of the EnsAD (École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs) and former director of the Ensba (École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts) in Lyon.
Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968): a truly unmovable work. Infinite network of complexities, of confusing tracks, of equations with the various unknowns. The interpretations with the paces of Talmudic discussions ginned up since decades participate of course of this elusiveness. But not only. Although haunting modernity, Duchamp escapes any synthesis. Nothing surprising. « The great artist of tomorrow will pass to the clandestinity », he had prophesied…
From Nude descending a staircase (1913) to Étant Donnés: 1° la chute d’eau, 2° le gaz d’éclairage, an installation discovered after his death in 1968, through Fountain (1917), a urinal signed R. Mutt, and L.H.O.O.Q. (1919), a moustachioed Mona Lisa, this book explores so many iconic works that still elude us and inspire us after having challenged all the foundations of modern art.
Arnaud Labelle-Rojoux, born in 1950 in Paris, is an artist, performer and visual artist. He first made a name for himself in the performance circuit, of which he is also a historian, with his book L’Acte pour l’art (Les Éditeurs Évidant, 1988; republished by Al Dante, 2004). He has since published a dozen books, including L’Art parodic’ (Java, 1996; reed. Zulma, 2003), Leçons de scandale (Yellow Now, 2000), Je suis bouleversé (Semiose, 2007), Marcel Duchamp, Jean Dupuy. En affinité(s) (Éditions Loevenbruck, 2018). He is represented in Paris by the Loevenbruck Gallery and his works have been exhibited in many museums (Palais de Tokyo, Quai Branly, Centre Georges Pompidou).
Who was Andy Warhol? Éric Loret offers us a personal portrait of this unclassifiable artist.
The discoveries in Warhol’s archives disturb the image we had of the « Pope of Pop »: if Warhol’s art is not a satire of consumerism, it is not an amoral adherence to postmodern capitalism.
By focusing on Warhol’s queerness and his opposition to gendered diktats, this biographical essay attempts to show that Warhol’s pictorial, cinematographic and media work remains a model of resistance to identity assignments and that, cynical in its own way, it calls for « real life » (Michel Foucault).
Through his sometimes absurd and offbeat style, Éric Loret takes us on a journey into the incongruity of the Warholian universe with formidable efficiency.
A former student of the École normale supérieure de Fontenay, Éric Loret is a historian and semiologist of text and image. A long-time critic for Libération, he now writes for AOC. He is also the author of Petit manuel critique (Les Prairies ordinaires, 2015).
