October 18–December 18, 2017
Arquitectura Expandida / Art Labor / Cabello/Carceller / Casa Tres Patios / Chimurenga / Chto Delat / Circular / Council / Forager Collective / Foundland Collective / Karrabing Film Collective / Iconoclasistas / Invisible Borders / Laagencia / Lanchonete / Mixrice / Moorish Elements / Pérou / Polit-Sheer-Form Office / PorEstosDías / ruangrupa / Theaster Gates & Rebuild Foundation / Theatrum Mundi / The Tentative Collective
Cosmopolis, a new biennial platform
The Centre Pompidou presents Cosmopolis, a new biennial platform devoted to research-based artistic practices that also reflect a renewed engagement with theories of cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolis highlights a spectrum of creative approaches that are both rooted in a particular context and participate in international conversations, reflecting on cultural translation and the situatedness of knowledge by way of residencies, research, exhibitions, talks, performances and screenings.
Cosmopolis #1: Collective Intelligence focuses on collaboration and collective practice. In order to better understand the current drive to create collectively, Cosmopolis showcases artistic practices centered on knowledge sharing and on the development of social fabric, notably through encounters, meals, trips, workshops, publications and the creation of schools and festivals. These artistic practices and strategies constantly question the role of art today. Cosmopolis #1 gathers cultural producers who affirm the potential of creative practices to create new ways of being in the world. Their cosmopolitanism draws attention to the representation of difference and mobility, reflecting the complexity of the movements and communications of our time, while cultivating a deep sense of the local.
Cosmopolis #1 presents a spectrum of collaborative artistic practices engaging with subjects that range from food ethics and ecology to history and its fictions, from hospitality and decolonisation to alternative economies. A series of residences initiated in 2015 in collaboration with the Cité Internationale des Arts provided invited artists with the opportunity to conceive and develop new works and strategies for engagement.
Cosmopolis #1.5, the second exhibition associated with the Cosmopolis platform, will be presented in China from September 2018, in collaboration with the Mao Jihong Arts Foundation.
Circulations: 9 weeks of thematic programs
“Collective Intelligence: Circulations” presents weekly talks, discussions and screenings on the key themes of Cosmopolis #1, including indigenous knowledge, identity, biopolitics, ecology, new pedagogies and artistic research strategies. The series of concerts “Music as knowledge: collectivity, transmission and improvisation” explores African music as the source of a large majority of new musical forms of the last 100 years, in collaboration with interdisciplinary collective Moorish Elements.
Keynotes
October 18: Armen Avanessian & Ravi Sundaram
October 25: Manthia Diawara
November 1: Elizabeth Povinelli
November 8: Chus Martínez
November 15: Denise Ferreira da Silva
November 22 : Arjun Appadurai
29 November: Irit Rogoff
December 6: Felwine Sarr
December 13: Walter Mignolo
Talks and screenings
October 19: Kader Attia with Art Labor, Chto Delat and Foundland Collective
October 26: Manthia Diawara & Wasis Diop with Theatrum Mundi
November 2: Karrabing Film Collective
November 9: Council
November 16: Pérou
November 23: Circular
November 30: Theaster Gates
December 7: Casa Tres Patios & Lanchonete
December 14: ruangrupa
Concerts
October 20: Cabello/Carceller & Mike Ladd
October 27: Allonymous
November 3: Tamar-Kali
November 10: Cheick Tidiane Seck
November 17: Alioune Agbo
November 24: Filip Kantinol
December 1: Theaster Gates
December 8: Matana Roberts
December 15: Kinshasa rebel nights
From December 13 to 17, Chimurenga is in residence with their Pan-African Space Station at La Colonie (128 rue Lafayette, Paris), presenting discussions, installations and performances in relation to the project Who Killed Kabila?, subject of a future issue of Chimurenga’s journal The Chronic.
A digital research tool
An online Cosmopolis platform launches as a tool for research and knowledge sharing. This will present constantly updated multimedia content, curated by the exhibition team and invited artists and theorists.
Cosmopolis #1: Collective Intelligence is curated by Kathryn Weir, with associate curators Caroline Ferreira, Charlène Dinhut, Ilaria Conti and Ellie Buttrose.