Sous nos yeux (partie 2) [Before Our Eyes (part 2)]
September 19–November 17, 2013
Opening: Wednesday, September 18, 6:30pm
La Kunsthalle Mulhouse / La Fonderie
16 rue de la Fonderie
68093 Mulhouse Cedex
France
T +33 (0)3 69 77 66 47
kunsthalle [at] mulhouse.fr
Curated by Abdellah Karroum*
Group exhibition at La Kunsthalle Mulhouse
Works by Mustapha Akrim, Gabriella Ciancimino, Shezad Dawood, Ninar Esber, Patricia Esquivias, Pedro Gómez-Egaña, Camille Henrot, Mohamed Larbi Rahali, Younès Rahmoun and Oriol Vilanova
Sous nous yeux (Before our eyes) is a project made up of several exhibitions, artist residencies, encounters, and productions. Two exhibitions, a radio program, and multiple productions are planned in Mulhouse under the direction of Abdellah Karroum, guest curator at La Kunsthalle in 2013.
The curatorial project explores the artistic vocabularies of a group of artists identified as the “Generation 00″ by Abdellah Karroum first in Morocco and who share a common approach at the turn of the twenty-first century. The idea of “00″ refers to the concept of rupture with the linear art history and promotes the dialogue of “Art and History,” placing each production within its context and each artist as a citizen questioning fundamental ideas such as movement, resistance, and freedom in the world. From a specific cultural and social context, the concept of the Generation 00 was rapidly used in reading projects on different continents. The issues raised by the idea of “Generation 00″ are larger than the art spaces and they are active beyond territories.
At La Kunsthalle Mulhouse, Sous nos yeux invests the same exhibition space for second time. The first part of the exhibition opened in February 2013. The third opus will be presented in 2014 at MACBA, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona. Most of the works in this project are newly produced or commissioned by La Kunsthalle and MACBA.
Sous nos yeux is conceived as an exploratorium for exhibition forms where the aim is to link the production of each artwork to an artistic project as a response that positions the artist in the world. The everyday and the immediate reality interact with the history and the far. The artwork is displaced from its site of production as a gesture towards the place of its exhibition, as an image or a repetition of this gesture.
Sous nos yeux continues the exploration of artworks’ production contexts and the conditions in which they are displayed. In opposition to the first part in which the works were shown in an open space, in the second part the space is built, fragmented as successive pages of a book. In an original layout, linking the idea of an open book to an architectural labyrinth, the viewer can choose to read or navigate through the many entries to the artworks.
*Abdellah Karroum is the guest curator at La Kunsthalle Mulhouse in 2013. He is currently Director of Mathaf: Qatar Museum of Modern Art in Doha.
Enquiries/press office: Clarisse Schwarb, T +33 (0) 3 69 77 66 28 / clarisse.schwarb [at] mulhouse.fr
With the support from the city of Mulhouse – the Regional Cultural Affairs Office of Alsace – French Ministry of Culture and Communication – Department of Haut-Rhin.
