The title as the curator’s art piece — Christophe Gaillard Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: January 29 → February 26, 2011

The title as the curator’s art piece

An Isabelle Le Minh proposal on Christophe Gaillard request

Inasmuch as the function of a title is to condense the subject matter of the exhibition or to summarize its spirit, The title as the curator’s art piece may appear rather puzzling.

This title — which sounds like a pure conceptual statement — is a work of Stefan Brüggemann, Mexican artist based in London, who has been developing for some years a list of titles for exhibitions ( Show Titles ) that are freely available.

On closer look, this title that contradicts itself could serve as a primer for many syllogisms, yet it seems more appropriate to consider it under the aspect of “functional”, not as a statement but as an artwork. In fact, Show Titles are latent collaborative works in the meaning that they need to be “activated” by a “third” party to exist as titles.

In the same way, the works in this exhibition have been selected because of their complex nature, their fluctuating status, somehow, their existential dimension: how they define themselves in relation to a use or an environment, their positioning /displacement towards the context of art history or painting tradition, or how they may escape the artist….

Thus the definitions / methods of Claude Rutault canvases painted in the very same color of the walls on which they are attached — in essence include the ability to exist in an infinite number of achievements, regardless of the will of the artist, providing they correspond to the artist’s original statement Similarly, Karin Sander Mailed Paintings — blank canvases sent to galleries — result from a process that totally escapes the artist, except that their final shape is totally unpredictable and may provide pleasant surprises. Who would have suspected the shipping companies able to produce ready-mades that look like Mondrian or Fontana works?

The canvas as a support plays definitely a central role in the works of Rutault and Sander, bus has no relevance in the work of Miguel Angel Molina. On the contrary, the latter tackles the painting for what it is, namely a material with specific qualities, and creates works as puddles of paint, whose features, both primitive and sophisticated, paradoxically make painting tend towards sculpture.

The more distanced approach of Isabelle Le Minh is of “meta-artistic” nature. By inventorying and classifying thousands of art works that she defines in a few words, she points out that any attempt to verbalize inevitably leads to approximations. Orchestrated in a playful installation (Listing / detail), her work highlights the absurdity of any project that seeks to reduce a work to a simple definition.

Yann Sérandour ( Titled (Art as Idea as Idea) [Kosuth] ) and Jill Miller I am Making Art Too update the one and the other proposals of two fathers of conceptual art, respectively Joseph Kosuth and John Baldessari. Although seeming tautological, these pieces work as feedback loops, a “return to sender” which, by modifying and moving the original work into another context, develops a new meaning. As a matter of fact, by “remixing” and slipping into the John Baldessari’s video (I am Making Art), Jill Miller makes art too… just like other artists in the exhibition. And so does the curator, if we believe the Stefan Brüggemann’s Show Title # 347: The title as the curator’s art piece .

Exhibited works:

 — Isabelle Le Minh | Listing/detail: 4 screens video installation , 75 mn each, 2009
 — Jill Miller | I am Making Art Too : video, 3 mn, 2003
 — Miguel-Angel Molina | Peinture en forme de flaque de peinture : Acrylic paint, 2011
 — Claude Rutault | Interchangeable généralisé, définition/méthode n° 49* : canvas to be painted in the same color of the wall
 — Karin Sander | Mailed painting : canvas, 50 × 60 cm, 2007-2009
 — Yann Sérandour | (Titled (Art as Idea as Idea) [Kosuth]) : lambda print, 115 × 115 cm, 2008