frac franche-comté / exhibitions from oct. 9 to dec. 30 2016 max feed / collective exhibition dominique blais / le temps matériel
max feed / collective exhibition Max Neuhaus, Listen, Poster: Brooklyn Bridge - South Street, 1976 Estate Max Neuhaus 2
max feed / collective exhibition Max Neuhaus testing for his Sirens project, 1978 1989. Estate Max Neuhaus. Courtesy Butler Library, Columbia University Max Feed A collective exhibition on the work and legacy of Max Neuhaus Seth Cluett, Trisha Donnelly, Nina Katchadourian, Myriam Lefkowitz, Simon Ripoll-Hurier, Sébastien Roux, Matthieu Saladin, Oleg Tcherny, Olivier Vadrot and Max Neuhaus October 9 December 30, 2016 Opening : Saturday October 8 at 6pm Curator: Daniele Balit In partnership with the Institut Supérieur des Beaux Arts (School of Arts) of Besançon Second part of the exhibition : Mix Feed, with Samon Takahashi at the Institut Supérieur de Beaux Arts de Besançon, from November 10, 2016 Max Feed is the first collective exhibition drawing on the work and legacy of Max Neuhaus (1939 2009). The exhibition celebrates his career, fifty years after LISTEN, his manifesto-work that marked the beginnings of his experimentation inviting the audience to listen to the post-industrial soundscape of New York. Regarded as the father of sound installation, Neuhaus gave up his career as a percussionist and performer in the mid-1960s to focus on creating aural topographies a term referring to installations within both the public sphere and the neglected areas of museums and galleries, giving rise to social situations in dialogue with daily life. Max Feed brings together some thirty studies and drawings, some of which are on display for the first time, as well as a substantial body of archival documents. The selected works relate particularly to Neuhaus s activity in France. Visitors will also be able to discover two rarely activated sound works: Silent Alarm Clock, an alarm clock created in 1979 that wakens the sleeper with silence, and Five Russians, a sound work originally designed in 1979 for the Clocktower Gallery in New York, reconstructed for the first time following only once before at the Outpost Gallery in 2015. Max Feed seeks to address Neuhaus s art, over and above the conventional practice of resorting to his drawings. Nine artists have therefore been invited to resonate with his pioneering work, mostly with new productions. This involves questioning the idea of legacy, not in the sense of an unequivocal transmission, but rather as a releasing of multiple processes, giving rise to a transformative and retroactive action. Indeed, the exhibition s title touches upon the notion of feedback, taking the name from a device created by Neuhaus in 1966 (the Max-Feed) for experimenting at home with the effects of feedback on radio and television broadcasts. 3
max feed / collective exhibition Simon Ripoll-Hurier, Losing the bird, vidéo, 11, 2015, photo : Tommy Davis, with Kenneth and Rufina Ward of the North Alabama Birdwatchers Society. Diana [2015.08.05] Thus, Myriam Lefkowitz probes the listening body in greater depth with the aid of choreographic pulses, while Olivier Vadrot guides that body through the language of design and scenography. Trisha Donnelly silently explores the aural garden principle, while Nina Katchadourian reorients the experience of the urban environment by playing on the fragile boundary between natural and artificial sounds. The pieces by Seth Cluett are an invitation to set oneself likewise at the border between two areas, exterior and interior, by focussing on the translational relationship between territory, architecture and sensory experience. Oleg Tcherny slips into the folds of a seemingly motionless time in order to sway perception. Simon Ripoll-Hurier has us listen to listening itself; Sébastien Roux adds a further layer of refractions between different mediums and languages, and Matthieu Saladin casts doubt on what is fitting to the act of listening. Through a multiplicity of sensorial experiences and mediums, Max Feed is an invitation to foster the ability to reorient attention. The exhibition is a commitment to a mindful practice acting on ordinary experience whether in the transformation of perceptive landscapes or in the greater awareness of individual acts within a community. 4
dominique blais / le temps matériel Dominique Blais, Entropê, 2014-2015, production : CIRVA, Marseille (Verrerie) Atelier Marc Descarrega, Paris (Ebenisterie), courtesy the artist and Xippas Gallery, Paris, photo : Jean Brasille, view of the exhibition «Bricologie : La souris et le perroquet», Villa Arson Nice 5
dominique blais / le temps matériel Dominique Blais Le Temps matériel October 9 December 30, 2016 Opening : Saturday October 8 at 6pm Curator: Sylvie Zavatta, director of the Frac Regional Fund for Contemporary Art In partnership with the Musée du Temps (Museum of Time) in Besançon and the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional Music Academy With the support of 2 Scènes Many of his works draw on now-obsolete practices such as the pinhole camera or silver photography, or at times on ancestral methods such as glassblowing. Others are reminiscent of archaic or quirky objects and machinery, often virtual in operation. Within this ensemble that is also evocative of transmutation, fire, light, energy, the cosmos or the cardinal points, the works many of which bear anachronistic titles, humorous borrowings from Latin or Greek invariably suggest an esoteric universe from another time or, at least, a potential poetic twist on science and mechanics. The work La Mécanique du temps présent, at the Musée du Temps (Museum of Time) in Besançon, stands in echo. Dominique Blais s exhibition Le Temps matériel is organized around the work entitled Finale (Les Adieux), created for the occasion. It is a transposition of the last movement of the Symphony No. 45 (known as the Farewell Symphony) composed in 1772 by Joseph Haydn who had decided that his musicians should leave the stage one by one, after snuffing out the candle that lit their music stands, gradually plunging the stage into complete darkness up until the last note. Dominique Blais s project is to have the piece replayed by the students orchestra from the Conservatoire de Besançon (CRR) music academy, and to capture the scene using a pinhole camera. By giving visual expression to the time of the musical performance, enabling us to see what is intrinsically invisible, Dominique Blais is pursuing an artistic line that, since his debut, has focussed on materializing the immaterial (time and sound), energy, flux whether pertaining, for instance, to the electrical properties of glass or to natural radio frequencies. 6
frac franche-comté / presentation Frac Franche-Comté, Cité des arts, Besançon Kengo Kuma & Associates / Archidev, Paul Panhuysen, Boléro Solaire, 2012, Collection Frac Franche-Comté Paul Panhuysen, photo : Blaise Adilon The Frac Franche-Comté regional contemporary art fund is one of the 23 Frac founded by the national and regional authorities in 1982 as part of a policy of decentralisation. The Frac Franche-Comté is an exceptional place dedicated to the discovery of contemporary artistic creation. It is a place for encounters and exchanges open to the general public. Designed by Kengo Kuma, this building on a human scale, with its fresh and bright aesthetic, has been devised to make it easier for visitors to discover the artworks as they move around. A continually updated programme of events awaits them, based on an ambitious listing of temporary exhibitions and multidisciplinary cultural offerings. The question of Time This programme draws on the Frac collection, with its wealth of 598 works by 303 artists; since 2006 the collection has focused on works investigating the broad question of Time, this issue being a perennial theme in art history, as well as a topical concern, rooted in the region s history. Since 2011, within this collection of works exploring the notion of Time, the Frac has sought to develop an area devoted to so-called sound works; a loan of more than 80 works by the Cnap recently enhanced this initiative. The Frac s collection is also centrifugal : as such it spans the region and also provides numerous loans within France and abroad. The events In tandem with the exhibitions, a wide variety of events await the public, including artist talks, lectures, evening performances, video nights, concerts and dance. The Satellite In 2015 the Satellite, a truck converted into an exhibition space by architect Mathieu Herbelin, begun its travels as it sets out to reach far-flung audiences. 7
practical informations / Max Feed A collective exhibition on the work and legacy of Max Neuhaus Seth Cluett, Trisha Donnelly, Nina Katchadourian, Myriam Lefkowitz, Simon Ripoll-Hurier, Sébastien Roux, Matthieu Saladin, Oleg Tcherny, Olivier Vadrot and Max Neuhaus Dominique Blais Le Temps matériel Curator: Sylvie Zavatta, director of the Frac Regional Fund for Contemporary Art October 9 December 30, 2016 Opening : Saturday October 8 at 6pm frac franche-comté cité des arts 2, passage des arts 25000 besançon, france +33 (0)3 81 87 87 40 www.frac-franche-comte.fr opening hours 2pm 6pm Wednesdays-Fridays 2pm 7pm Saturdays and Sundays closed May 1 st, December 24 th, 25 th and 31 st, January 1 st and during the mounting of exhibitions admission prices full price: 4 euros reduced admission: 2 euros free entrance: school children, those under 18 and every Sunday spaces are accessible to those of reduced mobility press contacts National and international press / Alambret Communication Leïla Neirijnck +33(0)1 48 87 70 77 / +33(0)6 72 76 46 85 leila@alambret.com Regional press / Frac Franche-Comté Domna Kossyfidou +33(0)3 81 87 87 50 domna.kossyfidou@frac-franche-comte.fr 8 Listen around you before you read this statement.