3rd Inter-Professional Contemporary-Art Congress
Art, Artists & Professions
Changing the conditions of art in France
15 and 16 November, Nantes (FRANCE)
Five years ago, professionals in the world of contemporary art felt the need to organise regular meetings in order to exchange ideas and compare experiences. More than the budgetary crisis or the ins and outs of the art market, what motivated this mobilisation was the lack of any space in which to meet and discuss the work of living artists and its implications. This awareness inspired the idea of organising a congress covering all the professions connected with contemporary art. In October 1996, a first interprofessional congress on contemporary art was held in Tours on a highly topical theme, “Art, a Public Matter.” The success of this event, which brought together over a thousand participants, led to a follow-up in November 1998, exploring another fundamental theme : “Art : the Need for Education.”
Against the background of an evolving contemporary art scene where changes are being felt in the artist’s relation to the political, economic, social and cultural context, but also in the very definition of the artist and his or her sphere of intervention, this third CIPAC has chosen to focus analysis and debate on the practices and production of the artists themselves. The artist as cornerstone of a professional structure whose work and initiatives influence, transform and even redefine the very nature and practice of the other professions connected with the world of contemporary art. How does the emergence of new forms of work make it possible to explore new modes of production and, in this period of new technologies, how does it affect the conditions and application of intellectual property rights ? What kind of repositioning do the artist as “self-produced” creator and the artist as initiator of projects imply for intermediaries, and what changes and extensions are needed in the network of public and private partners of contemporary art ? Beyond the simple production of objects, in what terms does the artist’s assumption of professional responsibilities and of a wide variety of social roles (teacher, researcher, artistic director, manager of an institution) raise the question of his or her professional status ? What is the condition of art in France today, and what in particular has become of the institutional model introduced some twenty years ago now ? What is the role of the private sector in the art economy ? These and many other questions will be discussed, analysed and debated during this two-day forum involving artists and their various intermediaries. The congress sets out to analyse the structure and internal workings of specific sector and to clarify the rules and issues in relation to the general development of the economy and to look beyond the basic question of professionalisation to its professional reality or realities.
Contemporary Art Night
Running parallel to the congress, a linked series of art events will put the spotlight on the art scene in and around Nantes.On Wednesday 14 November, the FRAC des Pays de la Loire is inviting congress-goers to meet Sarkis at his exhibition Transflammation, and Thierry Frer at the vernissage of his exhibition in the Salle Mario Toran.
On Thursday 15 November, congress-goers and the people of Nantes will be welcomed to a “Contemporary Art Night”, which is being held in the various spaces that constitute the city’s artistic fabric. All through the evening, “contemporary art buses” will ferry congress-goers around Nantes, stopping off at the various venues, many of which are putting on events specially to coincide with the Third Interprofessional Congress on Contemporary Art : the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lieu Unique, Zoo Galerie, Ipso Facto, Artothèque, Musée de l’imprimerie, Ecole Régionale des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, Entre-deux, Galerie le Rayon vert and Drôle d’Organes.
At the same time, DAS, the umbrella group for associations in Nantes, will be publishing a special issue of the local journal zérodeux entitled “Pièces à convictions”.
There will be a meeting with the German artist Klaus Rinke at the Grand Café, Saint Nazaire, where he is presenting his exhibition Solar, acqua, tempus.
Finally, from 16 to 19 November, at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Lieu Unique and the Piano’cktail de Bouguenais, the “Escales philosophiques” will feature nationally and internationally renowned philosophers holding forth on and discussing the theme of “Sensibility”.