A reflection and related practices on the concept and function of micro -, pseudo- Institutions, entities at al., as part of “The Age of Practices” program of Family Business in Palais de Tokyo
“Institute of Perceptive Practices” activations:
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Family Business house & Salle 37
time: 1pm, 3pm, 5 pm
Seminar :
Friday, April 18, 2014
Tokyo Art Club in Palais de Tokyo
time: 4-7 pm
Invited by Family Business, the seminar Quelle actualité pour la “critique institutionnelle” aujourd’hui ? (usually taking place at the INHA) and its organisers, Vanessa Theodoropoulou, Katia Schneller and Tristan Trémeau, will receive the artist and writer, based in New York City, Gregory Sholette. Carrying on with their questioning of critical forms interrogating the concept of institution, the three art historians will discuss with Gregory Sholette the wide spread use of imaginary entities and semi-fictional practices in contemporary art. From the fictitious documents of Walid Raad, the juridical fictions of Agency or of Olive Martin and Patrick Bernier to collectives functioning as pseudo-institutions of various legal and symbolic statuses – the “mockstitutions” following Gregory Sholette’s terminology in his recent book Dark Matter. Art and politics in the age of enterprise culture, Pluto Press, 2010 (Copenhagen Free University, The Center for Tactical Magic, Los Angeles Urban Rangers, Church of Life After Shopping…) – fiction (or “parafiction” or simulation) seems a privileged strategy for some artists in order to engage political issues. What does this recourse to imaginary or semi-fictional forms imitating or manipulating the institutions (or other manifestations of the real) on behalf of artists expressing a critical engagement? Is it symptomatic of a crisis or, on the contrary, of a renewal of the critical attitude in art?
During this session a talk given by Gregory Sholette will be followed by a discussion with the organizers and the artist Myriam Lefkowitz.
The seminar Quelle actualité pour la “critique institutionnelle” aujourd’hui ? is related to the research project “Fabriques de l’art, fabriques de l’histoire de l’art” supported by Esba-TALM, Esad-Grenoble-Valence, HiCSA Paris I University, and Ministry of Cultural Affairs. The book entitled Au nom de l’art. Enquête sur le statut ambigu des appellations artistiques de 1945 à nos jours, sous la dir. de Katia Schneller et Vanessa Theodoropoulou, Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne 2013 is the first publication associated with this research project.
As part of its research, the seminar Quelle actualité pour la “critique institutionnelle” aujourd’hui ? invites the Institute of Perceptive Practices to activate two devices, on the 17th of April:
Conception: Myriam Lefkowitz
Guides : Jean Philippe Derail, Myriam Lefkowitz
– Walk, Hands, Eyes, (a city) is a perceptive experience for one spectator and a guide in a city, lasting one hour.
The experience aims to weave a specific relation between walking, seeing and touching.
Following your booking, your guide will wait for you in front of the Family Business House in the entrance hall of the Palais de Tokyo. Comfortable shoes and light and bags are sincerely recommended.
– The lying city for one spectator at a time and one performer, lasting one hour. The spectator is asked to lie down in a silent space for one hour while the performer aims to weave a specific relation between moving, touching and listening. The practice will take place in Salle 37 of Palais de Tokyo
If you wish to book an appointment for either of the two practices , please write to the following email address: myriamlefkowitz2@gmail.com
Hours: -1pm, -3pm, -5pm
The institute of perceptive practices is a place without a fixed geographical inscription. The institute is invited by other places, institutions, organizations. The institute aims to produce and propose different sensorial experiences to whom wishes to visit the Institute. The institute is interested in the forms of imagination which are generated by alliterated state of sensorial attention.
*Family Business is an exhibition space initiated by Maurizio Cattelan and Massimiliano Gioni on February 2012. FAMILY BUSINESS is a guest house and a free time-share; a non-for-profit space open to experimentation and irreverent exhibition formats powered by the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. A guest + a host = a ghost. Nadja Argyropoulou is the Family Business guest (or ghost) curator