Un Barbare à Paris — Fondation d’entreprise Pernod Ricard — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: November 13 → December 22, 2018

With 23102015, Tatjana Danneberg, Virgile Fraisse, Signe Frederiksen, Viktor Timofeev, Anna-Stina Treumund, Evita Vasiljeva

Curated by Joachim Hamou, Maija Rudovska and Barbara Sirieix

A Barbarian in Paris is an exhibition and publication departing from the manifesto Active Art, written by Latvian collector, writer and doctor Andrejs Kurcijs in 1923. In the text Kurcijs identifies the importance of art and the artist in society but also defends the necessity of art to be activated within its own logic, to be independent. Today art practitioners in France, Latvia and elsewhere try to reconnect with a political dimension without losing an artistic autonomy. The relevance of Kurcijs’ Active Art is thus renewed in this context.

A Barbarian in Paris borrows its title from another book of Kurcijs; a poetry collection reflecting on living in Paris in the hay-days of the early 1900. In the book Kurcijs speaks with the voice of the outsider stumbling with language and cultural codes. But this humbled position soon dissolves in the crosspollination of cultures that the city provides. Choosing Paris for the presentation of the project springs out of this special relation with the capital Andrejs Kurcijs and his contemporaries had.

The project is a collaboration between Kim? Contemporary Art Centre in Riga, Latvia, Latvia100, Paraguay Press and Fondation d’entreprise Ricard in Paris, France.