Tableaux

Our first idea was to look into the very generic question of contemporary practices connected to painting, those observable mainly in the production of the generation of emerging artists in their thirties.

More than the issue of painting, too general and too far from the reality of these practices, we retained the notion of the "tableau," which became the title of the exhibition. This exhibition will mainly propose to shift the focus regarding painting from the stretcher to the gesture - to the performative aspects of painting.

The exhibition will bring together twenty one artists who we think propose strong positions. It focuses particularly on the gesture, composition and materials : it gathers unique works, installations, sculptures, wall paintings and, notably on the occasion of the opening, performances by Karina Bisch, Pietro Roccasalva, Jessica Warboys & Morten Norbye Halvorsen. "Tableau" refers to its literal sense of "a work in paint" executed on all kinds of support media. In its figurative sense, it refers to the idea of a flaw "in the beauty of a work." When it is said to be "vivant", or "living," it is the representation of a scene painted or interpreted by participants remaining immobile or "posed." The "tableau" is also an ensemble of objects, a natural representation that  strikes the eye and the mind. It can make reference to an elaborate  space-time or even a scene taken in by a brief glimpse.

The exhibition brings together artists working with these notions. Using as point of departure issues like re-covering painting's support media, the figures and objects of its representation and the space of its presentation will stage them and bring them into the order of fictional activities. These either generate the work by producing it materially or performing it. Existing works and many new works will be presented. For instance, Tomas Espina creates a mural piece right at the entrance of the exhibition and Aaron Curry produces a complex installation, in which collages and sculptures are united.

Jessica Warboys presents new works called “sea paintings“: canvas covered with pigments and dipped in the sea. Lydia Gifford proposes a production realised «in situ», in one of the the rooms of the galleries. In La “Rue“, MAGASIN’s central glass-roofed space, Nicolas Chardon extends his series named “Echo“ with new pieces and Ulla von Brandenburg creates a wall painting on the monumental scale of the space.

Tableaux
Kuratoren: Yves Aupetitallot, Vincent Honore

Künstler: Rita Ackermann, Karina Bisch, Karla Black, Ulla von Brandenburg, Nicolas Chardon, Aaron Curry, Tomas Espina, Lydia Gifford, David Hominal, Sergej Jensen, Jacob Kassay, Benoit Maire, David Noonan, Spandau Parks, Reto Pulfer, Lili Reynaud Dewar, Pietro Roccasalva, David Schutter, Oscar Tuazon, Lesley Vance, Jessica Warboys