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10/22/2009: "INSIDERS"
If you're coming to Bordeaux in the next few months, there is a stop you absolutely have to make. If the thought hadn't crossed your mind, plan a trip to Bordeaux anyway, come and taste the local specialities and save a day for a peek at the INSIDERS exhibition showing at the Entrepôt Lainé until the 7th of February 2010. You won't be disappointed.
The latest co-venture between CAPC museum of contemporary art and arc en rêve centre d’architecture is worth the trip. Centred on the uses, practices and know-how that have developed over the past decades, the imposing colonial warehouse is home to a colourful and well-thought-up selection of art and architectural works that bring the true concept of DIY to life.
The exhibition presents a new type of creation, that who has come to life following massive globalisation of our societies. It's a creation that goes beyond this globalisation, looking for new ways of expressing itself, bringing together such things as daily life practices and artistic approaches, handcraft and state-of-the-art technology, human beliefs and rituals and industrial production. It all comes down to the fact that everyone is or can be an artist, that the everyday production that Mankind has found to respond to pragmatic or more utopian ideas can be and is art. This new network of resources and creativity makes up the INSIDERS, those who think up a new way of creating art, architecture - a new way of life.
Focussing on young up-and-coming creation, the exhibition hasn't neglected pioneers in the subject such as Jeremy Deller, Mike Kelley, Jim Shaw and Jimmy Durham for the art side, as well as Alexander Brodsky or Patrick Bouchain for the architectural side. Over eighty works (forty artists and forty architects) have been brought together for the next few months, showing how very dynamic contemporary creation can be.
The exhibition scenography respects the tradition of the old warehouse, used to stock vanilla, coffee and chocolate in the nineteenth century when Bordeaux was a major commercial port. The huge nave is divided into rows by means of stacks of wood and tall metal shelving units. The works are presented on these strange but appropriate picture rails, which create a raw and unfinished aspect that is in tone with the exhibition’s general approach.
The nave is punctuated by several huge in situ installations that were commissioned by arc en rêve and the CAPC for the show. Marjetica Potrc’s Tirana House is probably the most impressive by its size and sturdy foundation that sits proudly in the centre of the exhibition. The House (built in collaboration with students in Bordeaux, marking the importance of transmission in art and architecture), is alongside the delicate and effective installation by the two talented architects that make up Ball & Nogues Studio in Los Angeles, that show another way of producing architecture. On the other side, Burö Detour have built a cadavre exquis around one of the nave's pillars, using only scrap materials found in a 50 km radius around Bordeaux and leaving an opening for the public's possible intervention. 2012 architecten also contributed to this creative frenzy with a pyramid of chairs that you can climb, to get to a small reading room where there are a number of books at your disposal to further your knowledge on the subject. And these are just some of the many explosive yet totally subtle works that are part of this major exhibition.
On your way in or out of the Entrepôt, you can sit in the architecture created by the Spanish collective El Ultimo Grito to take in this magnificent display of creativity. A must see.
More info at http://arcenreve.com/ and http://www.bordeaux.fr/ville/capc
More photos at http://playgroundsameo.blogspot.com
