Since its opening in
March 1995, the Neuchâtel Art Centre (CAN) has organized about a hundred exhibitions and
presented the works of over 160 artists from all over the world, such as Noritoshi
Hirakawa, Roman Signer, Olivier Mosset, Erwin Wurm, Jonathan Monk, Steven Parrino, Fabrice
Gygi or Kenji Yanobe. Defining itself as a place for discovery, experimentation and
production, the CAN works as a constantly changing platform.
How can one explain today’s artistic practice ? What does it mean to exhibit ? What
is the role of the organiser of an exhibition ? How does one conceive an exhibition room
how occupy it ? What is at stake for the artists of today ? What codes do they want to
change ? How long is an exhibition supposed to last ? When does it become alive –
during its conception, its realization, or on its opening day ? Do such things as before,
during, after exist for an exhibition ?
These questions have been discussed during the numerous manifestations of the CAN
(exhibitions, performances, video projections, conferences, etc.). Some artists opened a
rent-a-living-garden-gnome agency, others smoked their last cigarette, others destroyed
all the paintings meant to be exhibited, or measured the level of radioactivity in town,
or risked their lives when setting their heads alight.
Rather than propose a laboratory model where the objects to be studied are isolated from
each other and placed under a glaring light to be subjected to scientific analyses, the
CAN defines itself as a living space, a place of exchange between the different fields of
our reality and the most significant artistic experiments.
The CAN is a non-profit making association, renting its premises from the Town of
Neuchâtel. The Centre sublets a coffee shop and restaurant to cover its running costs,
and it is subsidized from time to time by public money. Because of its limited budget, the
people in charge of the CAN work on a voluntary basis.
Marc-Olivier Wahler, directeur artistique du CAN.
|
For centuries, a would-be artist had to face the severe inspection and criticism
of his masters, his fellow apprentices, his writer and poet friends, before confronting
the public. It is hardly the case nowadays, as distribution channels snatch up works of
art immediately and thus short-circuit the judgement of the artist’s peers. The fact
that those instances of recognition are disseminated, and the eclecticism of styles
described above contribute to the process of atomisation. On the one hand, there are more
showrooms, public collections, books and journals about contemporary art than ever before.
On the other hand, curators, art dealers and critics, and all the professionals in
countless intermediary posts created by the industry of culture, have as great a choice of
artists as an artist has of materials. The whole world of art is organized into networks.
These networks watch each other, classify each other on a scale ranging from extreme
traditionalism to extreme avant-garde. Yet it is only a very distant cry to the struggles
and antagonisms that marked the beginning of modernity. Nowadays, there seems to reign a
more or less peaceful co-existence, partly maintained by the relative impenetrability of
the networks.
Catherine Millet. 1997. L’art contemporain. Paris:
Flammarion, pp. 65-66.
L’art contemporain n’obéit pas à une
démarche iconoclaste qui viserait à détruire l’art (même si, aux yeux de
certains, il y aboutit): il obéit au contraire à une démarche «iconolâtre» (si
l’on peut dire à propos d’œuvres qui font si souvent l’économie de
l’image), adoratrice de l’art, consistant à tout lui accorder, à exiger son
extension à la totalité du monde.
Nathalie Heinich. 1998. Le triple jeu de l’art contemporain.
Paris: Minuit, pp. 170-172.
Les musées et les centres d’art contemporain, les
revues consacrées à l’art vivant, les multiples biennales et manifestations
périodiques où est présenté le dernier état de la création, bref l’ensemble de
ce qu’il est convenu d’appeler «le monde de l’art» continue à prétendre
unifier cette diversité en constituant ainsi un concept d’art contemporain qui se
définit par son caractère hétéroclite même. Le concept d’un art sans
définition est devenu le point central de sa définition. Ceux qui dénoncent le
bazar de l’art contemporain comme ceux qui l’exposent ou le commercialisent
utilisent tous la notion d’art contemporain pour unifier cette disparité dont ils
s’indignent ou dont au contraire ils profitent.
Yves Michaud. 1999. Critères esthétiques et jugements de goût.
Paris: Chambon, p. 30.
> Hâte-toi lentement.
|
