Hors-les-murs Drawing now / Jean-Christophe Norman

For the occasion, two performance projects revolving around drawing will provide an opportunity to broaden the field of narrative and improvisation through two invitations to travel. With Le départ, Chourouk Hriech offers a sensory experiment in which the lines of drawings are improvised based on the movements of a dancer and the singing exercises of an opera singer, and with Ulysses, a long way, Jean-Christophe Norman presents a new phase in the rewriting of James Joyce’s eponymous book, created in chalk on the streets of Paris.

Jean-Christophe Norman is a performer and visual artist. Since 2004, he has been developing a series of systematic explorations of major urban centres throughout the world, using the principles of analogy, superimposition, and evocation of geographical spaces, by precisely reproducing the contours of one city in another through walking. Deeply influenced by Borges, Jean-Christophe Norman’s work takes the form of performances, walks, writings, photographs and drawings, to examine the notions of time, territory and copying. He explores writing in different parts of the world by rewriting extracts or whole renowned novels in chalk directly on the ground. For his work Ulysses, a long way, the various chapters of Ulysses were written out in numerous cities: Marseille, Phnom Penh, Tokyo, Gdansk and Paris.

Jean-Christophe Norman was born in 1964. He lives and works in Marseille.

His work has been shown at the Van Abbemuseum, Frac Franche-Comté, Frac Paca, Centre Dürrenmatt Neuchâtel, Fondation Jan Michalski, far° festival in Nyons, Biennale de Belleville, Musée des arts décoratifs Paris, Musée National Picasso, Musée National Picasso, the Wyspa Foundation, Alternativa Gdansk, Biennale de Québec, Mac/Val, as well as in the cities of Palermo and Phnom Penh.