fondation cartier at 30: universalized eclectic global art in forward motion

8/12/2019 Fondation Cartier at 30: Universalized Eclectic Global Art in Forward Motion

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Commentary

Vivid Memories

Fondation Cartier pour lart contemporain

261 boulevard Raspail 14e

May 10 to September 21, 2014

by Joseph Nechvatal

Published asFondation Cartier at 30: Universalized Eclectic Global Art in Forward

Motion at Hyperallergic here

http://hyperallergic.com/131803/foundation-cartier-at-30-universalized-eclectic-global-

art-in-forward-motion/

Cartier, a wholly owned subsidiary of Swiss-based luxury goods holding corporationCompagnie Financire Richemont SA, branded itself in New York with its spectacular

Fifth Avenue and 52nd

Street store, situated in a railroad tycoons home, the Morton F.

Plant Mansion. In 1984, it formed the Fondation Cartier pour lart contemporain in Jouy-

en-Josas (near Palace of Versailles - now itself a regular site for large contemporary

sculpture). A highlight at Jouy-en-Josas was a 1990 reunion concert of the Velvet

Underground, supplementing an Andy Warhol show. In 1994, the Fondation Cartier

moved into the airy glass and steel building on boulevard Raspail designed by Jean

Nouvel (creator of the Institut du Monde Arabe and Muse du Quai Branly buildings) on

the former site of Chateaubriands residence and The American Center for Students and

Artists.


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The current exhibition Vivid Memorieshighlights those thirty years by showing (albeit in

a shifting manner) some works from its 1300 piece collection. So its a step-back-and-

see-the-big-picture moment. Which unnerved me some, as I first arrived in Paris in late-

94 and subsequently have many fuzzy memories to compare to the vivid ones presented

here.

The thing to grasp is that the Raspail buildings main floor is a huge glass box that tends

to overwhelm moderately scaled art, thus pushing curatorial decisions towards

transcendentalist spectacle. That may or may not be a regretful thing. It depends, perhaps,

on just how spectacular you want things to be, and for how long.

Ron Mueck, In Bed (2005), mixed media, 162 x 650 x 395 cm, A/P, back downstairs gallery in Vivid Memories,

collection of the Fondation Cartier pour lart contemporain, Paris (acq. 2006), view of the exhibition Ron Mueck at the

Fondation Cartier, Paris, 2005, Ron Mueck, Photo courtesy Anthony DOffay


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I have seen some dull and moldy spectacles here, like Jean Paul Gaultiers Pain Couture

bread show, but also admirable, spectacular, sumptuous things that yielded rich

intellectual aftermaths over the years, such as the Bill Viola (1990) Chuck Close (1994),

Sarah Sze (1999), John Maeda (2005) shows. My two favorite diverse shows have been

Mathematics: A Beautiful Elsewhereand Vodun: African Voodoo(both 2011). Individual

spectacular works that stand out in my mind are Chris Burdens massive "Medusa's

Head" (1990) - an autocratic industrial planet covered completely by a web of miniature

train tracks swallowed up into tunnels and loop over tiny aqueducts in an in-and-out

automated playhouse made sententious. I also recall Nancy Rubinss horridly fascinating

MoMA and Airplane Parts (1995/2002), a massive catastrophic assemblage that

projected a dark humor tied to a grueling work ethic. And I most definitely recall Tatsuo

Miyajimas installation Time Go Round (1996) which dealt with the abstract

constitution of time in the digital age. It consisted of abundant LED signal-lights that

flashed a countless bevy of over-excited circular digital numbers in a never-ending

random order. There I discerned a mystifying data constellation in transit that was

reminiscent of passages from William GibsonsMona Lisa Overdrive.

Diller + Scofidio, Master/Slave (1999) Mixed media installation with toy robots from the collection of Rolf

Fehlbaum at the Fondation Cartier, Paris

Also very vivid in my mind rests MASTER/SLAVE (1999), an absolutely brilliant

mobile installation of Rolf Fehlbaum's toy robot collection created by Diller + Scofidio.


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Circulating in and out of various views on automated rolling lanes (within a vast,

multiple-forked video surveillance zone enclosed in transparent plastic) was Fehlbaum's

extensive accumulation of toy robots from the 1950s to the 1980s. It stirred in me a

permanent metamorphosis, still rich in consequences. It was liberating because it gave me

new ways of looking at myself through the narrative tensions that run somewhere

between hide-and-seek private subjectivity and an objectified automated pawn.

Some of the same passive but mobile energy of MASTER/SLAVE is implicated in

Vivid Memories, as it is formed as a procession of spectacular works (James Lee Byars,

Panamarenko, Nan Goldin, David Lynch, Cai Guo Qiang, Raymond Hains, Richard

Artschwager, Bodys Isek Kingelez, etc) that regularly changes over the five-month

period. The ground floor has a large LED-screen that presents an extensive rotating

selection of films in daylight.


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James Lee Byars, The Monument to Language (1995), Polished bronze with gold-leaf, Diam. 300 cm, view of the

exhibition James Lee Byars ,The Monument to Language - The Diamond Floor at Fondation Cartier pour l'art

contemporain, Paris, 1995, Estate of James Lee Byars, Photo Florian Kleinefenn

Cai Guo-Qiang, The Earth Has a Black Hole, Too (1993), gunpowder on paper, 304 x 406 cm, Collection of the

Fondation Cartier pour lart contemporain, Paris (acq. 1997), Cai Guo-Qiang, Photo Florian Kleinefenn

So in your mind, just replace the toy robots with intermittent artists and you get my point

(even if it is less a matter of contemplation than an issue of amplification). This is a

vision of a universalized eclectic global art in forward motion: a relational aesthetic that

seems to hover over many exhibitions in France as a great correctness that cannot be

questioned but only tampered with. I guess it is the relegation of all aspects of art to usevalue or exchange value that more or less sums up bourgeois society. It is what Paul

Virilio, in his curatorial forays at the Fondation Cartier:La Vitesse(1991), Un monde rel

(1999), The Desert (2000), and Unknown Quantity(2002), refers to as the market of the

spectacle. This global idea market is evident throughout the wide range of artistic

expressions typically experienced at Fondation Cartier and it is not a stretch to point out


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that the main ground floor gallery exhibits often resembles a chic universal department

store lobby.

Vivid Memories installation view (concept jet by Marc Newson, paper lampshades by Issey Miyake) at Fondation

Cartier (main floor gallery - left) photo by the author


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Vivid Memories installation view with Alessandro Mendini, OMG! (2014), (left) framing Peter Haley Code

Warrior (1997) Photo: Thomas Salva / Lumento


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Designer Alessandro Mendinis wall frame OMG!(2014) (rear view) realized for the exhibition Vivid Memories,

2014 and directed by Alessandro Mendini as a response to Peter Halley, Code Warrior (1997) photo by the author


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Issey Miyake, "IN-EI" (2014) light installation specially created for the exhibition Vivid Memories, 2014 Photo:Thomas Salva / Lumento


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Bodys Isek Kingelez, Project for Kinshasa for the Third Millennium (1997) at Vivid MemoriesFondation Cartier

(main floor gallery far left) photo by the author


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Alessandro Mendini, Fragilisme (2002-2014) (main floor gallery right) photo by the author


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Richard Artschwager, Question Mark - Three Periods (1994) at entrance to Vivid Memories, Fondation Cartier (main

floor gallery left) photo by the author

During this first installment of Vivid Memories, the work that offered me the most

genuinely euphoric feeling was Dennis Oppenheims uncompromising multimedia work

Table Piece (1975), centrally placed in the enclosed basement gallery near three strong

wall works by David Hammons, and a very cool Mario Mertz Tartaruga (1975). Table

Piece has an ironic mimicry that verges on absurdity - and as such feedback to my heart

many powerful memories (of his great loft parties and warm personality) and possibilities

(as with many artists, Oppenheim provided me a bridge between land and body art that iscontinuously constructive).


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Table Piece (1975) Collection Fondation Cartier, (c) Dennis Oppenheim Photo: installation at Ace Gallery, NYC.

Photo supplied by Amy Plumb Oppenheim at the Dennis Oppenheim studio, NYC.


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Table Piece (1975) (detail white) photo by the author


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Table Piece (1975) (detail black) photo by the author


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Dennis Oppenheim, "Table Piece" (1975) (partial view) installed at Vivid MemoriesPhoto: Thomas Salva / Lumento

There are two belligerent small marionettes seated at opposite ends of the table at

microphones. One has a darker head and is formally dressed in a black coat with white

tie. The other, in similar garb but with a white coat, has a silvery head. They are located

far from each other at the opposite ends of a low 60 long table made up of sections

painted in gradually darkening shades between black and white. They seem to be

engaging in verbal dialogue. The sound of their verbal Beckettesque exchange is loudly

output to four speakers under the table. Their mouths move in perfect lip-sync to a wordy

soundtrack that in fact activates the lower jaw of the marionettes. The four words used

here - white, light, black, dark are processed through a computer to create random

sputtering phasings. The words are elongated, repeated, echoed and shuffled and go like

this:

Track 1:

BL..BL..BL..WH..DA..DA..DA..LI..BL..BL..BLACK..WHITE..WH..DA..DA..LIGHT..DAR

K..LIGHT..LIGHT..WHITE..WHITE..LIGHT..LIGHT..WHITE..DA..DA..DARK..LIGHT..

LI..LI..LIGHT..WH..HW..WHITE..LIGHT..LI..LI..WHITE

Track 2:

BLACK..DARK..BL..BL..WH..WH..DA..DA..LI..LI..BLACK..BLACK..DARK..DARK..BL..

BL..BLACK..BL..BL..BLACK..BL..BL..BLACK..


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Track 3:

WHITE..LIGHT..BL..BL..WH..WH..DA..DA..LI..LI..WHITE..DARK..BLACK..BLACK..W

H..WH..WHITE..DA..DA..DARK..BL..BL..BLSCK..BL..BL..BLACK..

Track 4:

WH..WH..LI..LI..LI..WH..LI..LI..LI..LI..LI..LI.. WH..WH..

This studded access into dark-light polarity wholly engaged me. It should be a conclusive

blow to the frayed tradition of the dialectical, but I must also be prepared to admit that

that notion is not the sole privilege of art. It is a kind of dream language that travels the

conveyer belt between dark imagination and light desire - between the darkness of the

intimate body and its liberation from reality.

A peripatetic mind is clearly sensed behind Table Piece - even while I sensed an

overall conveyance of longing. If I may presume to decode it, I would say that Table

Piece is attempting to give me an artistic shrewdness that tests the limits of form and

stretches the bounds of meaning by recasting my polar experiences into wildly

disjunctive mental transitions. The aim of Table Piece is to develop an ambiguous and

problematic sign system that compels me to question myself about the absolute instability

of the universe around (and in) me.

fondation cartier at 30: universalized eclectic global art in forward motion

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