Le culte des bannis (LCDB)
What is the Le Culte des Bannis (LCDB, the Cult of Outcasts)? A sort of private club whose members are artists who refuse to kow-tow to the hierarchy of genres, yet who enjoy such capital of admiration that they are often described as “cult”.
While the meaning of the word is immediately apparent, it is equally clear that it should be treated with a degree of caution. It would probably be simpler to refer to the phenomenon as adulation, were it not for the fact that this term has equally inapt religious overtones. Be that as it may, the artists that Le Culte des Bannis takes a particular interest in are creative figures of all stripes who have been co-opted by fields outside their own – writers by artists, architects by musicians, film-makers by artists, musicians by film-makers, and so on – the central question being to identify the common ground between them that makes them marginal figures or even strips them of legitimacy as creators – in short, what makes them outcasts from their home fields. One thing is for certain: the artists collected by the LCDB are chosen for images and sounds of the sort to capture the imagination of visitors.
Arnaud Labelle-Rojoux, assisted by Gauthier Tassart and Benoît Aubard, breathes life into a parade of ghostly outcasts at the Fondation d’Entreprise Ricard. He conjures up the spirits as if at a séance, giving them the rare chance of an outing for the all-too-brief span of a conference and performance.
