Entretiens sur l’art — Ana Jotta — Fondation d’entreprise Pernod Ricard — Meeting — Slash Paris

Past: Tuesday, November 15, 2016 7 PM → 8:30 PM

Patrick Javault invite artist Ana Jotta, with Claire Le Restif, director of Le Credac.

Rather than appropriation (this vocabulary around the proprietorial being an already rather dated concept), Ana Jotta’s art might be seen as a highly idiosyncratic, free-ranging approach to assembling and gathering about her (and us) images, objects and ideas. With them, she defines an order and a structure, opening up windows in the host exhibition space. Rather than asking herself “what?” she prefers to ask “how?” How to come to terms with a place, a moment, a situation, a time or a period? Here, embroidery is on a par with painting, commonplaces and platitudes with poetic text, a painted cup with a snippet of film dialogue that you’ve been carrying around with you for ages. We have the impression that the artist is letting us peer over her shoulder, that she’s emptying her pockets and drawers for us, with scant regard for whether we might care for the colour of her thoughts. But perhaps it’s about someone other than herself, the kind of person who thinks they ought to leave their mark or is convinced that by changing their name they can change identity. Ana Jotta claims that her art is seriously Franciscan, although she says so with an unwavering smile. Between the cynical laughter of philosophers and the smile of a cat, like a breath, a charm, glides this art of movement. Following on from Ti Re Li Re, her remarkable exhibition last summer at the Crédac centre for contemporary art, comes a desire for conversation. We will be joined by Claire Le Restif.

——————————

Having studied art at the the Belas Artes school in Lisbon (1965-68) and the Abbaye de la Cambre School of Architecture and Visual Arts in Brussels (1969-73), in the 1970s she pursued a career as an actress and stage designer (in theatre and cinema) before moving over to the visual arts in the 1980s. She has had a retrospective exhibition at the Museu de Serralves, Porto (2005) and her own exhibitions at Culturgest, Lisbonne (2016, 2012), at 8 Rue Saint-Bon (2015) and at Level One, gb agency, Paris (2013).