Irmavep Club
Livret IV & Livret V (Maurice Blaussyld)
29 February–10 June 2012
87 600, Rochechouart
France
Hours:
10–12.30/13.30–18,
every day except Tuesday
Irmavep Lab, a collective of artists and curators, began its activity in 2003 with a series of events in Chatillon-sur-Marne in the house of Musidora, actress in Louis Feuillade’s Vampire film. In a second phase, the group became Irmavep Club and continued its action as an artist-run space without a fixed space. Following the two first exhibitions in Paris (Art Concept gallery, Schleicher & Lange gallery) and one in Amsterdam (Motive Gallery), it is now at Rochechouart that the collective is deploying its programme. Considered like a succession of episodes, the story of Irmavep Club now continues with two new exhibitions. “Livret IV” and “Livret V” are shown simultaneously. The fourth introduces the fifth and vice versa.
“Livret IV” is a group exhibition with contributions or works from Dove Allouche, Lonnie van Brummelen & Siebren de Haan, Giovanni Giaretta, Volko Kamensky, Guillaume Leblon, Anthony McCall, Thomas Merret, Gustav Metzger, Mel O’Callaghan, Bruno Persat, Gerald Petit, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Olve Sande, Ettore Spalletti, Bruno Serralongue, Clémence Torres, and Michel Verjux.
“Livret V” is devoted to the work of Maurice Blaussyld (Calais, 1960) and is the first monography of the artist in a museum. Developed from the beginning of the 1980′s, Maurice Blaussyld’s work was strongly influenced by Joseph Beuys—particularly by the freedom which his art allowed—and it can transpire today as a form of resistance against the contemporary imperatives of communication and speed. Sometimes qualified as a “mystical” since he constantly perpetuates a certain “mystery” (that of the apparition of forms, images, thoughts), his work has a strange and irrational magnetism. Maurice Blaussyld does not hesitate to leave the visitor on the edge of some of his work. He blocks the exhibition route or imposes a distance that makes its apprehension difficult. In Rochechouart, the artist has chosen a layout in which forms are repeated but not revealed. Simulating the back of a painting or a cupboard, Sans titre [Untitled] is a work with dimensions that vary according to its presentation. Another Sans titre [Untitled], a form that recalls an emptied speaker, appears twice. Finally, it is in a “vitrine” that could contain a body that the artist presents drawings, images, annotated books. There, the discourse articulating the whole exhibition is sketched out.
As each of the Irmavep Club livrets, “Livret IV” and “Livret V” are conceived as a conversation. The works sketch out a storyline which carries intuitions and connections by sympathies. “Livret IV” took shape while becoming acquainted with the work of Maurice Blaussyld, as well as by the occurrence of relations, repetitions and differences in the Museum collections and premises. The guests weave close relations with the collection of Rochechouart’s Departmental museum of contemporary art and the building.
Located at 40 km from Limoges, and 30 km from Limoges’s airport, the Rochechouart Castle is perched dramatically on a rocky outcrop. Most of the castle date dates from the 15th century with an inner courtyard and elegant Renaissance gallery with frescoes from the 16th century. In 1985, Haute-Vienne Council established the Museum of contemporary art within its walls. The museum has an exceptional collection of artworks by artists such as Gerhard Richter, Luciano Fabro, Steve McQueen, Thierry Kuntzel, Gustav Metzger, Mathias Poledna, Guillaume Leblon, Aurélien Froment…It includes also the Raoul Hausmann funds, dedicated to the famous dadaist who spent the last 20 years of his life in Limoges.
The Musée départemental d’art contemporain de Rochechouart is an initiative of the Conseil général de la Haute-Vienne. This exhibition was made possible through the support of the French Minister of Culture (DRAC Limousin) and the Mondriaan Found (NL).
