Michel François
Plans d’évasion
12 March – 9 May 2010
Opening: 11 March 2010, 6.30 p.m.
Press Preview: 11 March 2010, 11 a.m.
Institut d’art contemporain
Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes
11 rue Docteur Dolard
69100 Villeurbanne
France
The Institut d’art contemporain presents Plans d’évasion, the first large monographic exhibition of Michel François’ work produced jointly with the S.M.A.K. (Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst), Ghent.
This collaboration between the S.M.A.K. and the IAC shows their common interest in monographic exhibitions, that is to say directly with the artist, providing him with the space, the time and the means to show work in all its complexity. It also allows the publication of the first retrospective catalogue of the artist’s work, an occasion to take full measure of what he has done since the 1980s.
Symmetry is a fundamental element in the relation between Michel François and the two exhibition spaces. At the Institute, he uses this feature while readapting the presentation of works and by making new ones.
As always with Michel François, the exhibition is designed using recycling as the operating method. A fundamental practice in his work, sculpture covers photography, video, installations as well as performance to address issues of space, volume and balance that determine representation, whatever the medium used. Recurrent preoccupations emerge from the heart of this proliferating, surging work: living material in all its forms (insertion of plant life, representation of mineral features, human gestures, etc.), the ordering of forces (gravity, balance, resistance…) and the metaphor of imprisonment and everything that it induces (breakage, holes, escape …).
Michel François’ objects, images and volumes ceaselessly change and bond, a replay of a growing natural process, and become transitory forms. The works thus seem as if frozen in an expansion of forms and meanings.
Publication
A retrospective catalogue was published in February 2010 by Roma Publications.
It includes a preface by Nathalie Ergino and Philippe Van Cauteren, an essay by Guillaume Désanges and a discussion between Michel François and Jean-Paul Jacquet.
A public presentation will take place Thursday, April 8, 2010 at Jeu de Paume, Paris.
Institut d’art contemporain, Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes
11 rue Docteur Dolard – 69100 Villeurbanne – France
For further information: www.i-ac.eu
Press contact: Delphine Peyronnet: d.peyronnet@i-ac.eu
The Institut d’art contemporain gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ministry of Culture and Communication (DRAC Rhône-Alpes), the Rhône-Alpes region and the city of Villeurbanne and especially for the exhibition, the support of La Tour Rose’ restaurant, Lyon, of Kaeser Compresseurs and Cinéparts.
