Group show “My Small Company”, 2003.
Contemporary Art Center, Meymac, France.
Curators: Caroline Bissière et Jean-Paul Blanchet.
Artists: Accès local, Art Wall Sticker, Atelier Van Lieshout, Andrea Blum, Catalogue Buy Sellf, Andrea Crews, Nicolas Floc’h, Raphaële Bidaut-Waddington /Goodwill, IBK, Les ready-made appartiennent à tout le monde, Gilles Mahé, Mathieu Mercier, Messageries maritimes armoire bateau, N.E.THING Co, Ocean Earth, Ouest-Lumière, Studio Orta, Soussan Ltd, That’s Painting Productions.
Exhibited work: “Goodwill”, mixed media installation, approx. 25 m2, including the video “Art vs Intelligence” and several interaction spots: “Public Exchange Offer” (cashier to exchange objects against original photomontages); and 2 letter boxes to submit or register ideas to the LIID (Laboratoire d’Ingénierie d’IDées / IDea Engineering Lab).
See “Art vs Intelligence” (in French) on vimeo.
Exhibition views on CAC Meymac website.
Press release
Under the generic title “My Small Company”, the Centre for Contemporary Art in Meymac will be presenting works by a group of artists who have chosen to question their own social status and, more broadly, the social role of art, by integrating their artistic activities into everyday reality and the field of general economic practises.
This new exhibit continues the Centre’s exploration of new practices emerging in today’s art, as seen in “Shop Surroundings” (2001), which dealt with proximities between the worlds of art, fashion and design, and “Stories” (2001), which analysed the return to narration, fiction and filmic structure.
Situated at the intersection of the protected artistic area and those of advertising, design or general products and services, the actions and propositions of the artists in this year’s show are presented as those of an industry or a SME (Small and Medium-size Enterprise). In this sense, it may be argued that they mark a return to the historical sources of Western art at a time when there was no defined border between artist and artisan and the artist was above all an engineer. Whereas now he is an entrepreneur.
Therefore, the exhibition will be arranged as a professional fair with each artist managing his own stand to show the activities of its real of fake company and offer his poetic services. In that context, artists clearly step away from the traditional romantic isolated posture.
