“The biggest painting show ever” is a proposal for an exhibition of paintings from the 20th and 21st centuries at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
To get an idea of the project, please scroll down the TUMBLR.
I’ve recently received an invitation for yet another French biennale. The card promised “54 artists from 9 European countries and the JCE prize”. It could easily have been “564 artistes from 7 European Countries and a happy winner.” No, this is no fairground announcement; it’s the French art scene. The official one.
Meanwhile, at the Ricard Foundation, four artists are in competition for a “prize awarded to one of the most representative artists of their generation.”*
I would very much like to know why 54 artists out of 9 countries is a good thing or why this is put forward as a communication argument. I’m also wondering how being the most representative of a generation is worthy of a reward. I must have missed something here. I didn’t even know it was part of the game. On the other hand, It I’m not sure if it’s really about people being born at around the same time, having lived through the same events, (in one country I suppose) or if it’s more about the notion of an art scene, theoretical positions, a certain discourse, style. Is it about representing other artists? Better than they do themselves? What if it’s a sluggish generation, should one represent sluggishness in a strong and effective way or be very sluggish oneself? I call a friend, as I feel a bit lost. She tells me it’s about rewarding an artist who represents the idea the jury has of how artists should represent their generation. It’s tautological, she says. As for those who represent minorities or the “voiceless”, people who just do not do thing like others, they don’t stand a chance: they won’t win the “pétanque” championship. That’ll teach them all right.
In 2000, a year after the first Ricard Prize, a group of collectors launched the Marcel Duchamp Prize: “Its ambition is to honour a French artist or artist residing in France, representative of his or her generation and working in the field of the plastic and visual arts (…) keeping with the essential artist after whom it is named, this prize wishes to bring together the most innovative artists of their generation on the French scene and encourage all of the new artistic forms, thereby stimulating creation.”*
To get an idea of the project, please scroll down the TUMBLR.
I’ve recently received an invitation for yet another French biennale. The card promised “54 artists from 9 European countries and the JCE prize”. It could easily have been “564 artistes from 7 European Countries and a happy winner.” No, this is no fairground announcement; it’s the French art scene. The official one.
Meanwhile, at the Ricard Foundation, four artists are in competition for a “prize awarded to one of the most representative artists of their generation.”*
I would very much like to know why 54 artists out of 9 countries is a good thing or why this is put forward as a communication argument. I’m also wondering how being the most representative of a generation is worthy of a reward. I must have missed something here. I didn’t even know it was part of the game. On the other hand, It I’m not sure if it’s really about people being born at around the same time, having lived through the same events, (in one country I suppose) or if it’s more about the notion of an art scene, theoretical positions, a certain discourse, style. Is it about representing other artists? Better than they do themselves? What if it’s a sluggish generation, should one represent sluggishness in a strong and effective way or be very sluggish oneself? I call a friend, as I feel a bit lost. She tells me it’s about rewarding an artist who represents the idea the jury has of how artists should represent their generation. It’s tautological, she says. As for those who represent minorities or the “voiceless”, people who just do not do thing like others, they don’t stand a chance: they won’t win the “pétanque” championship. That’ll teach them all right.
In 2000, a year after the first Ricard Prize, a group of collectors launched the Marcel Duchamp Prize: “Its ambition is to honour a French artist or artist residing in France, representative of his or her generation and working in the field of the plastic and visual arts (…) keeping with the essential artist after whom it is named, this prize wishes to bring together the most innovative artists of their generation on the French scene and encourage all of the new artistic forms, thereby stimulating creation.”*
How does one “encourage”, support or stimulate all new artistic forms by singling out one artist? How can one be the most representative, and at the same time, the most innovative? How does one bring artists together by honouring just one? Or is it the more about to honouring someone by bringing others together? I don’t get it. I’ve got the feeling that the Adiaf* (the organization behind the prize) has a bit of a right wing approach to art. In fact, it reminds me of Sarkozy’s speeches.
Anyway, with a panel of judges, it’s supposed to be politically safe and democratic, as one cannot really ask for explanations. They talk, deliberate, and take action. It has even become a TV show recipe, adaptable to various practices, but always with its winner, its prize, and contenders to be eliminated. It’s highly educational for the masses. It gets them used to being rejected, ostracized and sacked. Milton Friedman’s principles with a hint of Roman taste for blood, always fun to watch. You can even make people participate, take responsibility, and pay for their own votes. That’s what the “Sciences Po Prize for Contemporary Art” is doing (Science Po is somehow the equivalent of LSE) “On top of the prize given by a jury of prestigious and surprising names, (…) there is a Symbolic People’s Choice Award” (where students, teachers and employees can vote). There’s an important reminder on their website: “Remember to visit the exhibition before voting” and something about the final event: “There will a cocktail party, several DJ sets and performances. But entry is by invitation only...” They must have a very bright communication teacher there.
I do wonder if these French prizes are trying to copy the Turner Prize. I remember watching it live in 1999 on Channel 4, when Tracey Emin left the set. It was strong - you’ve lost me there- a real performance and a good show. I then left the UK and I’m not sure it went on being so much fun
Let’s cross the Seine again. We’re not going far at all: “What do you think of the Meurice Prize for contemporary art and the artists who have been pre-selected? With glamour or humour, levity or passion, write your comments.”* (Given the price of the room, I’m not going to correct their own English mistakes, am I?)
On the French version of the site, there are four comments, on the English one, a few more including: “great site”, “great”, “great idea”, “awesome”, and “I love this site”. It’s yet another panel of judges taking decisions here, including Colette Barbier, president of the Ricard Foundation, neighbour and the person who first re-introduced the idea of art prizes in France.
“Artistic creation has, since 1835, been essential to the art of living at Le Meurice, where art coincides with a certain French genius. Such luxury is the kind that gives expression to creativity and innovation, to art in its highest form.”* that’s the prize background. “Deconstructing our belief systems and preconceived ideas”*, that’s what the artist is doing with the piece “Arabs and services”, which won him the competition. Sorry, Neil, I like your work, but I’m also deconstructing here.
“Admission is free. The exhibition invites each and every one to discover the work of these young artists; equally importantly, it offers these “future greats” a fabulous showcase for the attention of curators, collectors and other important figures in contemporary art...” I’m not going to comment on this, as I do not wish to be accused again of slagging off unpaid interns.
Oups, I nearly forgot about the Audi Talents Award*, launched a year before. Seven winners since it started. One woman. If you take all disciplines: twenty-nine winners, four women. OK, it’s a boy’s talent club… The last chosen one is Ivan Argote, who “speaks about the future looking at History in the eyes.” Sorry Ivan, I know it’s more copying than really deconstructing… Sorry.
Anyway… Isn’t it weird to think that a prize given once a year to an artist will give the French scene international visibility? Are they going back to the old French community schools tradition of distributing end of the year prizes for the best pupils?
What sort of intellectual emulation does this create? What kind of context does it promote? Can we talk about it or is it taboo? I know it’s always good when artists get money, but still… I’m bored.
Liberal ideologies imply that competition is the best way to create wealth, but it’s not quite so clear anymore, is it? Are principles of prizes distribution not a bit backwards? Do we really need that in art at the present? Shouldn’t this be the kind of ideas artists should “deconstruct” like the press release has it?
May the best man win! Sorry, but I do find it corny, cheesy, old fashion, right wing, boring, and most of all anti-art.
“The biggest painting show ever” is therefore a sort of anti-prize. No panel of judges with renowned members. This is not a trial, nor an audition, nor a TV show. No winner and no losers. This is not a horse race, nor a cockfight, nor a Monopoly game. No super representative artists, no initiation rituals, and ceremonies.
French institutions tend to use the term “emergent” rather than “representative”. They refer to very different notions but are, at the same time quite exchangeable, like passkeys or Scrabble jokers. As a matter of fact, I do hope this is the visual counter-argument that comes out of the TUMBLR.
I hope it shows -and that something else than the emergence of young emergent artists is taking place. I’d be surprised if you thought about that while scrolling down the site. I reckon the idea of emergence is not even there. No revelation: this is not Christian art anymore. Something else is happening.
Maybe I’m wrong but I’ve got the impression that similarities are more important than differences on this TUMBLR. The longevity of painting is astonishing, even in the most radical and recent practice but there is something about this hyper production that is not only referring to quantities. It seems to have reached the stage where quantity becomes quality. Like when water is hot, very hot, and then so hot that it becomes gas. A new phenomenon. Maybe it’s not so much about counting artists on the list but more the effect of this unique mass of art. Maybe the whole collection is like on piece of work. Maybe one should think about it as music. Like Adorno talked about tensions within artworks, it could be about unresolved contradictions within this accumulation? Excess is a vague and flexible term, but when does it start to become this physical event through which something else is being performed? Are we going through a certain radical change in society, like when artists started to sign with their name at the end of the middle ages?
The web technological revolution is probably as strong a historical transformation as the beginning of printing, or as capitalism.
As for the petition… Well, it’s a sort of joke, of course.
A performative joke… for which I need you. So please SIGN…
And I shouldn’t explain a joke, should I?
-Sorry about the English mistakes-
No comments:
Post a Comment