ART CITIES:Paris-Le Bords Des Mondes

Answering Marcel Duchamp’s question: “Can one make works of art which are not ‘of art’?”, the exhibition “Le Bord des Mondes” (At the Edge of the Worlds), curated by Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel explores the many fields of artistic creation and welcomes creative people from outside of the art world whose work would seem to belong to it through its depth, its beauty and its singularity. These artists – visionaries, experimenters, poets and pirates, reveal these unprecedented fields and defy limits.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Palais de Tokyo Archive

Jean-Marie Schaeffer, philosopher, presents a view which runs counter to a position that seeks to oppose art and everything that is not art. He considers art to be a plural world which is constantly redefining its reach and nature through its interactions and exchanges with the multiple worlds that border it. The writer and art critic Brian Dillon proposes a classification of the forms and the individuals who have played a role in the history of the way we have examined and exhibited the world. A historical perspective on the spirit of curiosity that abounds in the exhibition “Le Bord des mondes”. Also David Raymond, artist, writer and poet, examines Bridget Polk’s “balancing rock” installations, Laurent Derobert, inventor of “existential mathematics”, discusses the relationship between math, art and love with the mathematician Edward Frenkel and the artist Peter Coffin, Philippe Rekacewicz, geographer, cartographer and journalist, guides us in the perusal of a map to an imaginary world invented by Jerry Gretzinger. Sandra Maunac, curator, retraces the history of Kinshasa Sape, while revealing its close connections with the city’s music scene, Hiroshi Ishiguro, who creates “geminoid” robots, talks with composer Keiichiro Shibuya, author of an opera written for the vocal synthesizer software Vocaloid with his “beach creatures” able to move and survive autonomously. Theo Jansen throws our anthropocentrism into fresh perspective, Frédérique Aït Touati, a literature and science history researcher and stage director, dives into the heart of Tomás Saraceno’s spider webs, the food essayist Bénédict Beaugé supplies an in-depth analysis of one of Pierre Gagnaire’s dishes, Jean-Paul Thibeau, artist-researcher, tells about his meeting with Jean Katambayi, the artist-hacker-DIYer Jane Venis, sculptor and writer, offers a study on the founding principles of chindogu, weird objects invented by Kenji Kawakami. Other participating artists are: CKY, Carlos Espinosa, Rose-Lynn Fisher, Game of States, Iris van Herpen, Zdenek Kosek, Jesse Krimes, Kusköy, Charlie Le Mindu, Arnold Odermatt, Le Prince noir, George Widener.

Info: Curating: Rebecca Lamarche Vadel, Palais de Tokyo, 13, Avenue du President Wilson, Paris, Duration: 18/2-17/5/15, Days & Hours: Daily: 12: 00-24: 00, Closed: Tue, www.palaisdetokyo.com