Interprétations à l’oeuvre
Collective show with Jennifer Caubet, Tom Castinel, Julien Creuzet, Carole Douillard, Nadège Grebmeier Forget, Luis Jacob, Adam Kinner, Karen Kraven, Catherine Lavoie-Marcus, Leisure, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Samir Ramdani, Jimmy Robert and Ulla von Brandenburg
A partnership between Astérides and la Fonderie Darling, Montreal (CA).
Curated by: Mathilde Guyon and Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre.
August 27 - November 27, 2016, public opening on Friday, August 26
Tour Panorama, Friche la Belle de Mai, 41 rue Jobin, 13003 Marseille
The exhibition explores gestural language in its various characteristics—through the diversity of meanings it carries, depending on context, the tradition it belongs to, or the audience it addresses. Gestural language is multifaceted; its comprehension and interpretation require the learning of a specific vocabulary.
As part of its transmission, gesture can be written down, taking the form of scores or scripts. The works on view address these aspects through videos, installations, documentation, sculptures, and performances, within a unique scenographic framework that sits between exhibition and stage. The spectator plays a central role in this project, both through the path offered—a choreography shaped by their movement through the space—and in the experience of the artworks, which invite reflection on the viewer’s own understanding of gestural language.
From ballet to techno, from the Krumpers of Los Angeles to everyday movements, gestural languages emerge in the richness of their meanings and practices. Different approaches shed light on their outlines and significance: their classification (Jimmy Robert, Vocabulary), the construction of notation systems (Karen Kraven, 37 Fouettés), spatialization and tension (Jennifer Caubet, X,Y), or the progressive embodiment of distinct word-movements (Samir Ramdani, Broken leg)—all of these are ways of living these languages.
Others highlight gesture by displacing it from its original context, whether addressing social phenomena (Carole Douillard, The Waiting Room) or iconic ballets (Adam Kinner, Suite Canadienne). In dance as in daily life, choreographies emerge (Tom Castinel, Métachorée), bearing witness to groups, societies, even eras (Ulla von Brandenburg, Yesterday is also Tomorrow and Today is like Here and Leisure, Dualité/dualité), or questioning parts of History (Julien Creuzet, Opéra-archipel).
Each gestural language gives rise to uniquely personal interpretations (Nadège Grebmeier Forget, Trois réflexions), and vice versa (Catherine Lavoie Marcus, Les Anarchives de la danse). Objects and art-related spaces (Luis Jacob, Towards a Theory of Impressionist and Expressionist Spectatorship and Tanya Lukin Linklater, Slow Scrape) offer further contexts that engage and question movement.