Reboot #1 — Bonne et mauvaise exposition — Palais de Tokyo — Lecture — Slash Paris

Past: Thursday, February 24, 2011 7 PM → 10 PM

Organized by Christophe Kihm and Florence Ostende

With the participation of Chus Martinez (MACBA, Barcelone), Giovanni Carmine (Kunsthalle, St Gallen) et Marc-Olivier Wahler (Palais de Tokyo, Paris).

In the first Reboot evening event, each guest will submit two exhibition proposals that could be shown in the Palais de Tokyo during its renovations. The goal is not to master the work site as an exhibition theme, even if it is an element that cannot be completely set aside, but rather to respond to the following two questions through a pragmatic approach to the construction zone as an exhibition zone: How and what to exhibit in a space undergoing construction? How can we rethink the exhibition as a building site? If we consider the exhibition as a form, which seems completely justified, then we must take into account the ramification of this supposition, both practical and theoretical: we will render these forms concrete while resisting the typologies or classifications and develop criteria that allow us to evaluate and form a critique.

This notion of the exhibition as a form may be the symbolic profit derived instantly in order to maintain a position of authority (the famous “exhibition author”), but this is only an artificial problem because this notion, in fact, acts as a platform to investigate this subject on a practical as well as a theoretical level. This evening, what’s at stake is rethinking the conceptual framework in order to conceive of exhibition projects differently when thinking about exhibition practices and form.

The ante is the following: ask three curators to submit two exhibitions that can be shown in the Palais de Tokyo during its renovations. It is less about exploring the work site as a poetic or symbolic exhibition theme (even if that is one of the possible characteristics of the proposal), and more about privileging a pragmatic approach to the construction site as a nonnegotiable reality of this venue. This raises the following questions concerning how and what to exhibit in a construction zone, and if these exhibition proposals are a way of exhibiting the construction zone itself.

Within these intellectual parameters and in the spirit of a game, each contestant must submit a good exhibition and a bad exhibition. A good exhibition is one that, according to its author, functions well in this space. In opposition, the second exhibition proposed by the same curator should function poorly or not at all. By highlighting the variables that distinguish these two versions and the exhibitions themselves, we hope to establish transparency with the construction operations (on a conceptual and practical level) and to confirm criteria necessary to evaluate the theoretical bases of an exhibition.

Different guests will be asked to suggest revamped versions of exhibition proposals and to show them during the period between the first and second evening events. A showing of the taped performance titled My Ex by Eric Duyckaerts will be projected at the end of the talk.