As the new highlight of its temporary exhibition, the Musée d'art moderne de Céret (Pyrénées-Orientales), now extended and praised, invites all audiences on a journey to the galaxy of contemporary artistic creation from the last fifty years. Commissioned by Clément Nouet, current director of the Musée Régional d'Art Contemporain Occitanie/Pyrénées-Méditerranée (MRAC), this event entitled “Constellations” proposes to make stars/works of all kind shine in the spaces and on the walls of the museum, encouraging visitors to give their imaginations and dreams free rein, and to find as many solutions to their questions and universes of contemplation and reflection in these constellations as the artists brought together:
Tjeerd Alkema, Dove Allouche, Jean-Marc Andrieu, Laurette Atrux-Tallau, Renaud Auguste-Dormeuil, Marion Baruch, Abdelkader Benchamma, Christian Boltanski, Belkacem Boudjellouli, Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, Andrea Büttner, Nina Childress, Henry Codax, Johan Creten, Philippe Decrauzat, Hubert Duprat, Joan Duran, Mimosa Echard, Richard Fauguet, Dominique Figarella, Roland Flexner, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Alain Jacquet, Ann Veronica Janssens, Véronique Joumard, Rolf Julius, Yayoi Kusama, Bertrand Lamarche, Yvan Le Bozec, Tania Mouraud, Masaki Nakayama, Bruno Peinado, Anne and Patrick Poirier, Christian Robert-Tissot, Kristina Solomoukha, Pierre Soulages, Djamel Tatah, Tatiana Trouvé, Jessica Warboys.
To assess the situation and look to the future is one of the objectives of the “Constellations” exhibition, which brings together nearly forty artists from France and around the world, of different generations, who combine creations of very personal universes which have made their mark on the history of art over the last fifty years. All of these works selected here come from collections found in two Fonds régionaux d’art contemporain Occitanie (Montpellier and Toulouse) and in the Musée régional d’art contemporain Occitanie in Sérignan. The strong commitment from the Région Occitanie in aid of the contemporary creation and more broadly, the work of these institutions, must also be highlighted.
Furthermore, the aim of the “Constellations” exhibition, first and foremost, is to inspire visitors of the
Musée de Céret to widen their possibilities. By encouraging oppositions and the association of works that would probably not be found without this panorama, its commissioner has hoped to favour an ability to surprise. Instead of trying to even out the spaces between works, or to artificially create an aesthetic, he has chosen to play with the differences, to show what opposes them. A scattering of styles, mediums and fragmented thoughts therefore appear, which are the reflection of the contemporary art scene. He gives away an indication of his curatorial approach below.
“On this immense painting of a cerulean night, the mathematical daydream has drawn sketches. These constellations are all false, delightfully false! They bring together, in a single figure, stars which are completely unknown. Between real points, between isolated stars like solitaire diamonds, the dream of constellations draws imaginary lines.”
In this extract from L’air et les songes, Gaston Bachelard (1) makes the starry night a place for creation. Contemplating the breathtaking infinity of the world and tracing figures that connect its isolated elements according to the desire of our gaze, as is human activity in its purest form. Entitled “Constellations”, the exhibition evokes a group of stars/works whose projections on the celestial vault are close enough for visitors to connect them with imaginary lines, therefore tracing a figure in the cosmos. Stars are born and die, they shine and fade away, then disappear. But they never fully disappear because their stories, myths and memories remain. “Constellations” is not sparing with the polysemy of its title and attempts to assert the power of a cycle, of a time, of a light at once. The exhibition therefore offers visitors the chance to gaze at a scene which is projected in a globalised world where the notions of identities, borders and values are made disproportionately more complicated. This exhibition also has the notion of “deterritorialization” (2) running through it, a concept formalised by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari which is probably one of the most important philosophical inventions in recent decades (3). This idea is essential, not only because it anticipates a true modus operandi of declassifying values, but also because it has freed thought from space and time. The exhibition does not aim to make a star twinkle, but to show a sum of plural and random intersections. While not claiming to be exhaustive, it reflects different sensitivities by favouring various “thematic and conceptual inputs”, in addition to cross-checking. Like any collection, a snapshot, a map or a group portrait remains, all while going beyond the simple Boolean search.
The “Constellations” exhibition hopes to give art back its “phatic” function, to create a connection between the leading works, public collections and cultural facilities on one territory at the same time, to gather and unite around contemporary art.
(1) Gaston Bachelard, L’air et les songes - Essai Sur L'imagination Du Mouvement, 1943; Le Livre de Poche, 1992
(2) Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Capitalisme et Schizophrénie, vol. 1: L’anti-OEdipe, 1972; Mille Plateaux, 1980; vol 3: Qu’est-ce que la philosophie? 1991. “Critique”, Paris, Les Éditions de Minuit
(3) This term, which appears in the trilogy “Capitalisme et Schizophrénie”, has been applied to political and social practices, in addition to the art world. It describes the shift in declassification of signs, of objects, which means that they no longer have to be used in a conventional way and other possibilities are opened up. Creative shifts, deterritorialization creates new thought dynamics. “The artist […] accompanies a rhythm which is always different, the world surrounding us in its rhizomatic development”.
