STUDENT SERIES: ÉCOLE NATIONALE SUPÉRIEURE D ART, VILLA ARSON: towards a consideration of instrumentalization

Transcription

1 STUDENT SERIES: ÉCOLE NATIONALE SUPÉRIEURE D ART, VILLA ARSON: towards a consideration of instrumentalization

2 Proposal to the reader See Student s Statement Draw a diagram of what you see as the relationship between the following people and spaces: artist a person considered the author of the art work home where the artist lives participant a person assisting the artist in the realization of the work, especially in what s known as project art money the artist s financial support system collector a person who purchases the artist s work and is a patron of the artist s practice gallery a private space which presents the work to the public to offer it for sale and provides the artist with professional support museum a public space which presents the work to the public curator a person who organizes the presentation of the work in the museum art school a place for artists to develop their work and learn how to participate in the contemporary art world; but also a place to return to, as a professional artist, to teach what you have learned and explain what you see as urgent in contemporary art writer, critic, and/or art historian a person who thinks carefully about the work and discusses it through their writing - assignment given to us by Ben Kinmont 2

3 STUDENT SERIES: ÉCOLE NATIONALE SUPÉRIEURE D ART, VILLA ARSON: towards a consideration of instrumentalization Frontispiece l. 2 A prefatory note l. 4 Students Statement l. 5 Students diagrams: Jean-Pierre Bertrand l. 6 Vincent Ceraudo l. 7 Ortensa Deda l. 8 Antoine Donzeaud l. 9 Florimond Dupont l. 10 Pierre Fisher l. 11 Loup Gangloff l. 12 Nicolas Gimbert l. 13 Valentin Jardinier-Almodovar l. 14 Anna Tomaszewski l. 15 Appendix: Jean-Luc Godard excerpt l. 16 Colophon l. 17 Antinomian Press École nationale supérieure d art, Villa Arson Nice

4 A prefatory note I was invited by Sebastien Pluot to organize a workshop at the Villa Arson during the time of his curated group exhibition Double Bind, arretez d essayer de me comprendre! This exhibition addressed the subject of translation in contemporary art practices and included seventy artists. The engravings from my project Shhh (2003) were included and for this reason, I was invited to Nice to work for a few days with the students. A total of nine students participated and this publication is the result of that workshop. Before my arrival I gave the students the following assignment: Draw a diagram of what you see as the relationship between the following people and spaces: artist a person considered the author of the art work home where the artist lives participant a person assisting the artist in the realization of the work, especially in what s known as project art money the artist s financial support system collector a person who purchases the artist s work and is a patron of the artist s practice gallery a private space which presents the work to the public to offer it for sale and provides the artist with professional support museum a public space which presents the work to the public curator a person who organizes the presentation of the work in the museum art school a place for artists to develop their work and learn how to participate in the contemporary art world; but also a place to return to, as a professional artist, to teach what you have learned and explain what you see as urgent in contemporary art writer, critic, and/or art historian a person who thinks carefully about the work and discusses it through their writing What follows in this publication are the nine individual diagrams by the students in response to the above assignment, a statement written by the students on the subject of instrumentalization, and a group diagram (drawn up to illustrate their text). I would like to thank Sebastien Pluot for his invitation to Nice. Ben Kinmont Nice 12 March

5 Students Statement Instrumentalization starts when a person, or organization, uses another person to further its own ends. Our first intuitions concerning this notion were vague; we gave it a musical, or robotics, meaning, which appears when one analyses the word: instrumental/ization, these two monemes indicate the correlation contained in instrumentalization (instrument and action go together). Also, there is a general expression for this verb in English, which is used when there is no musical meaning: to make tools of something; making a tool of something, in French, means: to use it. A diagram seemed to us an appropriate way of showing the interconnected relations. Indeed, inside the diagram an endless system of connections shows relations appearing and establishing themselves, in a partial or global way, each interaction being unique and offering consequences determined by the instrumentalization itself. The way a diagram works depicts the way instrumentalization operates. In this workshop, Ben Kinmont suggested that we produce diagrams according to a protocol which followed the logic of his own research. Thus, we were faced with the fact of our own instrumentalization in the context of this project. -Allowing us to take a conscious stand- -This fact is now included in our general understanding of the project- The list of actors given to us by Ben Kinmont is a partial proposition, but the fact that the Oeuvre, the Public and the State ( Etat in French) are missing seemed significant to us; thus our proposal will take the shape of an OPE (Offre Publique d Echange). The concluding diagram identically repeats the proposal that was made to us. We have added a shape on which we suggest the reader place all the entities on the list in the spaces in between quotation marks. The shape contains dotted lines indicating all the instrumentalizing relations that can exist between these entities; we suggest the reader fill in the lines and indicate a direction by drawing an arrow on one end, or on both ends if the instrumentalization is reciprocal. If none of the relations seem relevant to the reader, he can choose not to fill in any of the lines linking one entity to the others but all the vertices must be filled in. We all agreed that no instrumentalization was possible if there wasn t at least one entity to recognize and discover another; we offer this diagram so that the reader can become conscious of this in turn without having participated in the workshop by projecting entities from the list onto the diagram, the reader herself activates the process of one discovering the other, which necessarily results in relations of instrumentalization. Jean-Pierre Bertrand, Vincent Ceraudo, Ortensa Deda, Antoine Dozeaud, Florimond Dupont, Pierre Fisher, Loup Gangloff, Nicolas Gimbert, Valentin Jardinier- Almodovar, Anna Tomaszewski. 5

6 Jean-Pierre Bertrand 6

7 Vincent Ceraudo 7

8 Ortensa Deda 8

9 Antoine Donzeaud 9

10 Florimont Dupont 10

11 Pierre Fisher 11

12 Loup Gangloff 12

13 Nicolas Gimbert 13

14 Valentin Jardinier-Almodovar 14

15 Anna Tomaszewski 15

16 Appendix: Jean-Luc Godard excerpt For whom, and against whom, is a film like Tout va bien made? It s There are two pretty recent films that are similar that are but which differ in their methods and in the way they are made, there are two films that seem interesting to me. One is called Coup sur coup by Marin Karmitz, which he made with female factory workers from Elbeuf, and one that I directed with Jean-Pierre Gorin called Tout va bien. One could say that these two films take sides with, let s say, those who want change, particularly those who are the majority, I mean those who are exploited, oppressed, essentially represented by the working class in France, men and women. Coup sur coup goes directly to see the female workers at Elbeuf, and makes a film with them. In my opinion this is my personal opinion -, he skips a step. [.] The exploiter never tells the person he is exploiting how he is exploiting him. So we, who in fact are this information, the movies, television, newspapers, we who use this speech of the exploiter talking to the exploitee. Because that s what movies are about, and novels, newspapers, television, it s about telling something. We who are inside this must precisely tell things in a different way, so that in the end we are telling a different story. - Tuesday, 3 o clock pm 16

17 Antinomian Press Ecole nationale supérieure d art, Villa Arson twenty copies printed March This copy was downloaded from 17