Fiction / Performed readings #5
As part of the initiatives conducted in association with the periodical « J’aime beaucoup ce que vous faites » [« I Like Your Work a Lot »], the Fiction / Lectures performées program [« Fiction / Performed Readings »] aims to experiment with the possible forms of a practice of public reading from the angle of visual arts.
Public reading is a practice of literature very often offered within the framework of exchanges between writers and readers.
The modes of operation are often very limited: an author or a reader reads a text in public, sometimes with a staging of the text that can come close to theater. In the 1960s, some artists (Robert Filliou) and writers (William S. Burroughs, Bernard Heidsieck) took part in new attempts to make contemporary poetry public on the occasion of « poésie – action » events at the American Center on Boulevard Raspail. Already, during the early avant-gardes, Kurt Schwitters – among others – approached the question of voicing the text through sound poetry.
As it seeks to continue and further these experiments, the Fiction / Lectures performées program uses the diversity of current practices to raise the question of which types of artistic acts can best deal with the orality or the plasticity of the text. An experimental laboratory, the project brings together artists from different fields: visual artists, choreographers, writers, performers, each time questioning an original relation to reading and literature.
The Fondation d’entreprise Ricard welcomes the 2nd season of Fiction / Lectures performées, a program initiated by Christian Alandete and Agnès Violeau, the founders of the periodical J’aime beaucoup ce que vous faites. The program aims to experiment with the possible forms of a practice of public reading from the angle of visual arts.
BIOGRAPHIES
Eric DUYCKAERTS
Born in 1953 in Liège (Belgium); lives in Nice where he teaches at the Villa Arson.
Since the early 1980s, artist Eric Duyckaerts has been developing an original practice of the lecture/performance, halfway between scientific knowledge and fiction. Playing with parodying discourse, he questions the gap between truth and certainty. Speaking on the two-thumbed hand as well as on the way to draw a square, he progresses through analogies or digressions, mixing up different discursive registers in the process.
A jurist and philosopher by training, he studied art at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Arts Plastiques (Paris). In 2007 he represented Belgium at the Venice Biennale with the project « Palais des Glaces, Palais de la découverte » [« mirror palace, discovery palace »]. He is represented by the Emmanuel Perrotin gallery in Paris.
Pierre ALFERI
Born in 1963 in Paris, where he lives and works.
Pierre Alféri is a poet, a novelist, an essayist, and a translator. He co-founded periodical Détail with Suzanne Doppelt and the Revue de littérature générale with Olivier Cadiot. He has experimented with forms of writing and has collaborated with visual artists (Jacques Julien) and musicians (Rodolphe Burger). His publications include Le cinéma des familles (P.O.L., 1999), La voie des airs (2004), and Intime (Inventaire/invention, 2005).
Anne DUREZ
Born in 1969 in Lille; lives and works in Paris.
An artist and video director, Anne Durez is interested in passages, moments of transition and instability. Mlua, the title of the video, is a term used in Batam (a dialect of western Cameroon) to refer to clouds, the impression of fogginess and limited visibility. In this performance, the artist invites a Cameroonian actor to read a text on blindness while the rain begins to fall.
Durez’s latest film was presented last year at the Marseille Festival International du Documentaire. Her work is the object of an ongoing exhibition in Sao Paulo (Brazil).
