SOCIETE ANONYME

Société Anonyme proposes to throw light on a time and activity rarely visible within an art exhibition: that of the studies, site-specific researches, and the first constructions and discussions that lead to new projects. A group of artists, collectives and art structures – run by artists and/or curators – coming from various cities around the world, are hosted in residency in Paris and invited to imagine and carry new projects in dialogue and collaboration with artists, intellectuals and like-minded producers living in France. What is at stake with this exhibition is on the one hand to provide the invited guests with a productive context of work and on the other hand to render visible and intelligible to the French audience the energies that fuel these practices developed abroad, the modalities of their research, and their respective economic apparatuses.

Société Anonyme transforms the exhibition space of Le Plateau into a collective office of sorts where the artists will display and regularly discuss their ongoing researches and productions. The time frame of the exhibition will be shaped by a dense programme of events ranging in formats from presentations and lectures to more performative and spontaneous actions. France-based artistic initiatives, artists, theoreticians and art students will be also closely involved in the activities and dynamics of the exhibition. This will be enacted for instance in a weekly programme of public discussions called “The Problems of the Week” where, every Saturday afternoon, the guests and the hosts will confront their ideas and experiences on a series of topics defined by the curators:

1. Polyvalence and multi-activity (Part 1): ungraspable identities? 2. Self-organization: collectives, structures; does size matter? 3. Alternative television: what, how and for whom? 4. Portraits of the artist as researcher. 5. What manifestos for today? Artistic statements and intentions. 6. Polyvalence and multi-activity (Part 2): precariousness or model economy? 7. Critical theory: what traffic and uses in contemporary art? 8. The problem with Société Anonyme

The various discursive events of Société Anonyme will progressively give content and shape to the reading room in the exhibition space. After this first period of research, productions by each of the guests (journals, books, films, etc.) will emerge and will be co-produced by Société Anonyme and gathered again in Paris at the end of 2007.

The project owes its title to Société Anonyme Inc, the organisation founded by Katherine Dreier, Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray in New York in the early 20s, and which was dedicated to promote European art in the USA by sponsoring many lectures, concerts, publications and exhibitions. The project in Paris also borrows to the original Société Anonyme its motto: “Art, not personalities”, and in this sense wants to promote contemporary alternative artistic practices that exist first and foremost through exchange, dialogue, autonomy and the energy at work.

Société Anonyme was made possible thanks to the support of the Fundacion Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, La Locale TV and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris-Belleville (ENSAPB). Work Method is a partner of the Société Anonyme project, with the support of the American Center Foundation and the Kadist Art Foundation.

The Frac Ile-de-France is an initiative of the regional council of the Ile-de-France region. Le Plateau / Frac Ile-de-France / Le Plateau is supported by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication, the Regional Direction of Cultural Affairs of Ile-de-France, the Paris’ City Hall and the Caisse des Dépôt. It is a member of the Tram Network and of Platform, the regrouping of the French Fonds Régionaux d’Art Contemporain.

A project realized at Le Plateau, Paris, as a part of Hospitalities, a season of exhibitions organized by the network Tram.

http://societeanonyme.blogg.org/

SOCIETE ANONYME
Kuratoren: Thomas Boutoux, Natasa Petresin, Francois Piron

mit 16 Beaver Group, b_books , Erick Beltran, Chto Delat? , Curating the Library  / Moritz Küng, Nico Dockx & Friends, Tere Recarens, tranzit.cz  / Vít Havranek, tv-tv , WHW