villa parc Why am I all blue identity unknown season press release from 30 June to 22 September 2018

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1 villa identity unknown season press release Why am I all blue An exhibition of Nadira Husain s work du from 30 June to 22 September 2018 parc contemporary art center parc montessuit, 12 rue de genève annemasse, france

2 Why am I all blue villa du parc is supported by the city of annemasse, the auvergne rhône-alpes region, the direction of cultural affairs and the department of haute-savoie, the ministry of culture and communication / drac rhône-alpes ; the villa du parc is member of the french association for the development of art centers / dca, altitudes / contemporary art in alpine territory and the geneva-art-contemporary / gac. the exhibition ideally located is realized in partnership with the fonds cantonal d art contemporain of geneva, the école supérieure d art annecy alpes and the villa du parc. For the summer, La Villa du Parc is featuring the first solo show on French soil of Nadira Husain (1980), a French artist of Indian descent who lives and works in Berlin. Inspired by the unexpected floating associations that are the stuff of childhood and reverie, Husain mixes in her pictorial practice motifs and techniques that come from traditional Indian and popular Western cultures with which she grew up. She creates hybrid polyphonic paintings that express in tangles of lines a variety of references that are devoid of hierarchy or center. The domestic, ornamental and spatial dimensions are combined with a feminist approach to subjects and strategies of representation. She has taken over La Villa du Parc and made it into a distant echo of her family s house in Hyderabad, imagining a teeming tipsy show in which paintings of powerful women and composite creatures joyously fill the space and sow their political potential for transformation. Why am I all blue, the creatures populating the prolific pictorial world of Nadira Husain wonder, raising a question that is not lacking in a positive affirmation. Smurfs, Hindu deities, and furry avatars of cyberpunk culture share this skin color, chosen precisely because it is not seen in humans. Blue points to a community of beings who have a troubling and ambivalent identity. Feminist theories since the 1970s and 80s have posited that the best way to free oneself from the binarities that are specific to the oppressive patriarchal system is through the kind of creatures dreamed up by science fiction and underground cultures, i.e., cyborg, amazon, androgynous beings, etc. All figures interrogating difference whose ability to transform themselves, along with their physical and intellectual plasticity, reworks the limits of the community while calling into question the roles a complacently macho nature supposedly assigns them. La Villa du Parc is thus playing host for the summer to the pantheon of a new type created by the artist Nadira Husain where visitors can get acquainted with speckled-skinned women-foundations who are solidly grounded and bearing a load, therianthropic creatures pregnant with comic book figures, and other supernumerary-limbed characters proliferating throughout the Villa s rooms, sowing new avatars everywhere. Dense and fertile, the Husainian style goes all in for flooding the canvas and spinning out numerous lines, replicating motifs and superimposing figures upon figures in a decorative, ornamental approach to painting, which expands on the wall and floor, and in the surrounding space. Pourquoi je suis tout bleu (Why I Am All Blue) combines recent works with a number of new pieces done specifically for the exhibition. Husain has devised a presentation that plays out on both floors, with the ground floor anchored in the ground, carnal obsessions and earthly difficulties, while the floor above, apparently freed of gravity, deploys winged creatures in an airy space that is ideal for dreaming and reverie. Propelled by the effervescence of all these influences, anyone can dream of their own positions and rethink the near world of domestic space that is nevertheless in touch with far-off fantasy, and in proximity to those who are depicted with such ease and exhilaration at La Villa du Parc. Garance Chabert, curator of the exhibition

3 Nadira Husain Nadira Husain (b. 1980, Paris, France) has exhibited widely, including solo presentations at PSM, Berlin, DE (2017); Armory Show, New York, US (2018); Artissima, IT; Tempo Rubato, Tel Aviv, IL (2016); Tobias Naehring, Leipzig, DE (2015); Kunstlerhaus Bremen, DE (2014); and in Positions, at ArtBasel, Miami, US (2013). More informations : com/nadira-husain/ She has been in numerous group exhibitions in Europe and elsewhere, including n.b.k, Berlin, DE (2018); the Skulpturen-Triennale, Bingen, DE (2017); Unorthodox at The Jewish Museum, New York, US (2015); Painting Forever, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, DE (2013). Since Spring 2017, she has joined the teaching team of the foundationclass*- Kunsthochschule Weissensee, Berlin. Husain works in Paris, France, Hyderabad, India and Berlin, Germany. Nadira Husain, Rider, Path and Vehicle, Installation view, PSM, Berlin, 2017

Events Opening : Saturday 30 th June 2018 from 6pm Guided tours : for gourmands Quick tours : Wednesday 11 th July, Friday 3 rd August and Friday 7 th September from 12:30pm to 1pm A 30 minutes tour

4 Events Opening : Saturday 30 th June 2018 from 6pm Guided tours : for gourmands Quick tours : Wednesday 11 th July, Friday 3 rd August and Friday 7 th September from 12:30pm to 1pm A 30 minutes tour for discovering a selection of artworks and for understanding the main subjects of the exhibition. 3, free for members and children under 12 for zens Family workshop : Activities qi gong, yoga and hip hop (dates to confirm) 3, free for members for faithful Heritage Days and party members : Opening of the exhibition Saturday 15 th and Sunday 16 th September from 2pm to 6:30pm Fabienne Audéoud s performance «Practice» Free Outside projects : for sportive people Walk in Voirons with the artist Guillaume Aubry «Courser le soleil» Saturday 21 st July from 6pm Free Nadira Husain, Le temps suspendu, 2018, Dyes, silk screen and paint (tempera and acrylic) on canvas Joséphine Kaeppelin is in residency in the Siegwerk compagny in Annemasse as part of the program «Art et Industrie» Summer closer from 7 th to 20 th August. Reopening on the 21 st at 2pm

Nadira Husain, Embodied performances, 2018 (brown body), Silk

Nadira Husain, Ici, Riace, 2015, Kalamkari (Hand-painted with

Husain, Beugen Strecken, Installation view, Künstlerhaus Bremen,

5 Nadira Husain, Embodied performances, 2018 (brown body), Silk screen and paint on canvas (tempera and acrylic) on canvas Nadira Husain, Ici, Riace, 2015, Kalamkari (Hand-painted with vegetable dyes on cotton, Traditional Indian technique) Nadira Husain, Beugen Strecken, Installation view, Künstlerhaus Bremen, Germany informations and pictures on request : communication@villaduparc.org

villa du parc The contemporary art center Villa du Parc is an exhibition venue dedicated to today s visual and artistic practices and located in Annemasse (the city bordering Geneva).

6 villa du parc The contemporary art center Villa du Parc is an exhibition venue dedicated to today s visual and artistic practices and located in Annemasse (the city bordering Geneva). Steadfastly focused on contemporary artmaking, the Villa du Parc is a hub for artists and the production and creation of art, as well as a center for promoting and transmitting contemporary art to the general public. The creation of works of art is part of the main concerns of contemporary art that the Villa du Parc actively supports. Invited artists contribute to the vitality of contemporary art and enjoy national and even international exposure. identity unknown season The Villa du Parc is committed to a program of events that is grounded in a diversity of practices, just as the field of contemporary art (painting, drawing, photography, video, writing, etc.). Each year a particular theme for the season is addressed, through 4 or 5 solo or group shows, whether esthetic, societal or geographic, making it possible to tackle a notion or field of activity from several points of view and timeframes. La villa du parc benefits from the precious support of The French Ministry of Culture - DRAC Rhône-Alpes, The Région Auvergne Rhône-Alpes, The Département de la Haute-Savoie, and the City of Annemasse. ; la villa du parc is a member of French organization for developpement of art centers/dca, of altitudes/contemporary art network in the Alps and of Geneva contemporary art network/gac. villa du parc contemporary arts center parc montessuit, 12 rue de genève annemasse +33(0) , open from tuesday to saturday from 2pm to 6:30pm and with appointements

7 from 30 June to 22 September 2018 opening Saturday 30/06 at 6pm exhibition performance walk guided tours and family workshop

villa parc Topknots local temperature season An exhibition of Nicolas Momein s work from January 14th to March 11th 2017 press release

villa parc Topknots local temperature season An exhibition of Nicolas Momein s work from January 14th to March 11th 2017 press release villa local temperature 2016-17 season Topknots An exhibition of Nicolas Momein s work from January 14th to March 11th 2017 du press release parc centre d art contemporain parc montessuit, 12 rue de genève