Printemps de Septembre 2005

"VERTIGES" (Vertigos) is a selective, subjective examination of the many ways in which contemporary art can appear as an exploration of psychological landscapes as well as visual, or, more generally, perceptual landscapes.

There are myriad varieties of vertigo. The word itself, from the Latin, designates a spinning movement, a rotation, and by extension dizziness; but it also makes us think of ecstasy, drunkenness, the madness of the artist. Vertigo, which catches everything in its whirl, which provokes such strong feelings, even has an affinity with the idea of revolution in all of its senses.

The artists brought to you this year by Printemps de septembre are singular figures, associated with no fashion, group, or period. But each embodies a conception of art as a moment of disequilibrium, a moment when everything is called into question. They "capture vertigos", to borrow Rimbaud's comment on his own verbal alchemy, working to elaborate mental states, imagined landscapes or universes which beget the experience of limits - the limits of their mediums, of the physical and spatial co-ordinates of their work, and above all of iconographic and decorative idioms, worn down by the range of their variations. This experience is induced in the viewer, too, by diverse destabilisation strategies.

It is the image, then, with all its powers of captivation, which is at the heart of Printemps de septembre 2005. The great range of vertigos is matched by the range of mediums of expression represented this year: from painting and drawing in all their forms to multimedia installations via photography, sculpture, and video. Attached to no particular generation, but aimed at exposing the range of eras and personal trajectories which underlie the contemporary scene, "VERTIGES" is a search for an idea of art at once dynamic, complex, and open.

Jean-Marc Bustamante, Artistic Director Jean-Pierre Criqui, Exhibition Curator Pascal Pique, Exhibition Curator

Pressetext

Printemps de Septembre 2005 "VERTIGES"(Vertigos)
Künstlerischer Direktor: Jean-Marc Bustamante
Kuratoren: Jean-Pierre Criqui, Pascal Pique

mit Franz Ackermann, Fred Tomaselli, Teresa Hubbard & Alexander Birchler, Chloe Piene, David Reed, Philip Taaffe, Stephane Benoit, Siobhan Hapaska, Jean-Luc Moerman, James Rosenquist, Franz West, Jennifer Steinkamp, Björn Dahlem, Diana Thater, Jean-Pierre Bertrand, Gerhard Merz, Cindy Sherman, Stephane Calais, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Sigmar Polke, Daniel Schlier, Ger van Elk, Virginie Loze, Anne-Marie Schneider, Alice Anderson