À Cris Ouverts

Everywhere, different ways of being are opening up and enacting distinct paths.

With the Biennale’s 6th edition À Cris Ouverts—which junction of sound and meaning cannot be translated (with wide open screams / or crisis / or verse / or green)—appointed curators Étienne Bernard and Céline Kopp aim to gather artworks and artists from different generations and backgrounds, and who have been shaping different ways to inhabit the world.

Rather than artworks merely fitting into an imposed theme, À Cris Ouverts intends to question conventions and actively involves the participating artists in a constant dialogue, trying to think beyond a vision of the world ruled by orthodox economics, which continues to demand and shape our civilizational lens. À Cris Ouverts offers to reflect on distinct imaginaries of a collective whole, looking beyond the established principles of domestication in which the subordination and management of other subjectivities—human, non-human or post-human—have imposed themselves as the only way to secure value and inhabit the social and natural world.

Partner venues
Étienne Bernard and Céline Kopp are developing a large scale artistic project spanning over ten venues. These exhibitions, varying in size and scope, are being defined in close collaboration with the local institutions and venues invited to participate in this edition.

In Rennes: Halle de la Courrouze, Musée des beaux-arts de Rennes, Frac Bretagne, 40mcube, La Criée centre d’art contemporain, PHAKT Centre Culturel Colombier, Galerie Art et Essai, Lendroit Editions.

In Brittany: Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain, Brest, Galerie Raymond Hains, Saint-Brieuc.

About the curators
Étienne Bernard has been the director of Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain in Brest since 2013, where he has curated the first solo exhibitions in France by Fredrik Vaerslev, Goldschmied & Chiari, Koki Tanaka, Laëtitia Badaut Haussmann, Laura Aldridge, or Ming Wong. He has also been the board president of dca - national art centers network since 2015. He previously directed the International Festival of Poster and Graphic Design in Chaumont and an exhibition program at the CAPC Museum of Contemporary Art in Bordeaux (2007–2009). From 2010 to 2013, he set up and coordinated Fieldwork: Marfa research and residency program in the United States.

Céline Kopp is currently director of Triangle France, a non-profit visual arts organization in Marseille. In her capacity as artistic director, she has recently curated Liz Magor’s first European solo exhibition, as well as Erika Vogt’s and the first French exhibition by Chicano artist group ASCO. She has recently commissioned or produced new works from artists such as Charles Atlas, Eva Barto, Jean-Alain Corre, Margaret Honda, Cally Spooner, and Laure Prouvost, among others. Previously, as an independent curator, she has developed projects centered on research and production using the format of residencies as a research tool (including a long term project initiated in Memphis, TN a decade ago).

About Les Ateliers de Rennes - Contemporary Art Biennale
Since 2008, the biennial has been developing the idea that art, the economy, and the creative thinking of artists could be brought together and engage with today’s crucial issues—work, value, and the thought of the future—which artists approach in many different ways. Organized by non-profit organization Art Norac, the Biennale is supported by the City of Rennes - Rennes Métropole, the Ministry of Culture - DRAC Bretagne, Brittany Regional Council, Ille-et-Vilaine Department. International public partners, foundations and private partners also make strong financial supports to artistic projects that are specific to each edition.

Organization Art Norac
Curators Étienne Bernard and Céline Kopp, assisted by Elsa Vettier
Implementation le troisième pôle

International press enquiries
CloseEncounters, nadia [​at​] closeencounters.fr, T +33 652 086 908
French press enquiries
Fouchard Filippi Communications, phff [​at​] fouchardfilippi.com, T +33 153 288 753