As everyone knows, the conference is a means of exchange that mobilizes a qualified participant on a topic and an audience likely to adhere or not to this speech. However, during the 2000s, many French artists used the conference as artistic material for the creation of their works. To learn more about this, marie sorber talked with Christian Alandeteexhibition curator Oral Text visible in the Pernod Ricard corporate foundation.
words fly
Quite a recent phenomenon, how to explain this progressive transmutation of material works into immaterial conferences in contemporary art?
” In the 2000s, many guest writers at art schools questioned the relationship to discourse, asking who has the right to speak and about what. Many artists then decide to speak to create a work and mobilize a large amount of knowledge outside of art, such as linguistics, mathematics and science. » Christian Alandete
At the same time, cultural mediation has acquired a certain importance in contemporary art. So should we see in these artistic words a way to mediate our own work?
” I don’t think so, because the idea is not to mediate his work but to show a stage in it. Likewise, the work is no longer an object, contemporary art questions the object as an art form and focuses on the work as the creation of a moment of exchange between an artist and his audience. » Christian Alandete
In this, the growing importance of arts conferences is very similar to the performing arts. However, the distinctions persist:
” It is close to live performance, but differs from it in economy of means. We are not at all in the spectacular. The idea is to use a microphone, a PowerPoint, very rudimentary elements of the speech, to divert them and produce something unique. » Christian Alandete
6 minutes
language trip
However, is the presence of the public an integral part of the works produced in the eyes of the artists?
” Yes, because we go directly to the public. And these works only happen at a given time, which will also raise the question of the safeguarding of these works: how to report after the conferences? » Christian Alandete
Our language, whether used artistically or not, is still an unnatural learning process. This is what the exhibition tries to show Oral Text through a crossing in language thanks to the materialization of the latter by the artists:
” The first piece we see or hear is that of Camille Llobet, an adult soprano’s transcription of a child’s babble, which leads us to wonder if an adult can learn a language that precedes articulate language. In counterpoint there is a work by Zhana Ivanova that is a collage of ASMR noises forming a kind of universal language made up of mouth noises. » Christian Alandete
2 minutes
The exhibition Oral Text it can be found at the Pernod Ricard Foundation until July 23, 2022.