Up until October 14, 2012, the town of La Gaude aims to become a space for artistic creation on the theme: “ARTISTS AND POLITICS, committed characters.”
“ARTISTS AND POLITICS, Committed Characters” is an event designed to spark intellectual curiosity and thus awaken a true desire for culture.
The exhibition is part of “the activation of consciousness” and “communicative action” in the name of art in proximity.
The exhibition at La Gaude introduces the debate around “citizen awareness” and demonstrates that art is a “field act” and even a vigilant safeguard.
The question of commitment deserves to be posed and demands an answer without escape.
The works on display therefore invoke reflection on what should occupy every instant of our existence and make our experience enriching.
Each work presented contributes to the demonstration that nothing in an intelligible sky sketches the plans of man as a “political animal” (Aristotle).
In every society, ideally, man should engage, free from any constraint and separate from any predetermination. “ARTISTS AND POLITICS, Committed Characters” is therefore an exhibition that extols full citizen responsibility and complete political freedom: a man involved in the city engages all humanity by constructing their civic life in a “civilizing” process (Braudel).
La Gaude, once again declared for the year 2012 as a City of Contemporary Art, portrays the citizen-man in all his states in constant interrelation with his societal environments.
The exhibition “La Gaude: City of Contemporary Art” marks a desire to realize the DEMOCRACY of cultural proximity: it aims to initiate a collaborative approach to the promotion of art.
The event “Artists and Politics, Committed Characters” invests La Gaude in five exhibition venues, five “pavilions” with evocative names of contemporary politics….
Pavilion War: Chapel
“Master Sun said: War is the great affair of nations; it is the place where life and death are decided; it is the path to survival or disappearance.”
More significantly, terrorism radically questions politics by changing the rules of war through a nihilistic temptation that excludes any mediation. Humanitarian war, war against terrorism—the classical conceptualization of war becomes insufficient.
Pavilion Crisis: Multipurpose Room
The only place in the exhibition where works are presented by country, evoking the universality and contemporaneity of such a denomination…
Indeed, “Crises” bear a strong impression of uncertainty felt by all, a sense of powerlessness against a political, economic, and social system that seems to be wearing out. It’s also a discomfort challenging political practice. Nothing new in a “crisis society” to be distinguished from a “society in crisis”!
Crises do not necessarily result from the actions of designated “manipulators” (media, extremists, terrorists, etc.), we are all complicit in crises in the way we talk about them, creating the mirage of prevailing gloominess. It is therefore necessary to question the human to understand the causes and processes of crises as well as their consequences in our society. Fragmented man faces the paradox: that of the contradictions of systems shared between the rise of individualism and the atomization of the social body on one hand, and the desire for equality and need for solidarity on the other. Any collective or individual action might perhaps be submitted to or reduced to structures.
Pavilion Mood: Gardens
The speakers of the agora of the Greek city, the idealist philosophers of the Enlightenment, and the tribunes of previous republics have been replaced by political “celebrities.” The media game imposes a discourse and postures that respond more to performance art than the expression of political ideas. In fact, we are witnessing an attempt to divert power by a media caste. Their influence seems such that they exercise a real counter-power that some call “telecracy.”
Today, they need to become stars, belong to the media world, to attract the interest of the masses. “France, mother of the arts, arms, and laws” where are you, letting yourself be led by such mediocrity?
Pavilion Charisma: Town Hall
The typology of the Savior established by Raoul Girardet shows that “the providential man responds to a situation and situated social needs.” The call to the providential man responds to a double demand: to resolve a crisis of legitimacy and to satisfy a need for the sacred still invested in politics facing the disenchantment of the world. “The providential man is a revealer of society. The paradox of his absence continues his function…”
Pavilion Commitment: Town Hall Facade
Mathias Enard: “Tell them of battles, of kings, and of elephants.” Electoral evening speech in front of a saddened or enthusiastic crowd; an empty chair in front of a television camera; the dazed face of a man surprised by the sudden boos of the crowd; the overturned and bloodied chairs of a tribune. All moments more or less spectacular of “commitment” or “disengagement” of political figures, that is to say, persons holding the power of the State, or a part of the State’s power, displaying qualities that allow them to exercise it. The spectacular staging of power deliberately seeks to amplify the importance of its actors.
The media society promotes the romantic or the pathetic of a story, not reflection or thorough analysis. Between the staging of memory by politics, the individual’s need for identification and simplification of understanding, the collective history as experienced is primarily that of the stories of great men. Could this be the true imprint of commitment, in the subsequent writing of a national or political novel, in inspiring future actors?
Expo-Off Gaudois Artists: The Dome
In this context, Gaudois artists will invest The Dome, a privileged cultural venue in La Gaude, to offer their perspective on one of the proposed subjects: “politics seen by the artist.”
A popular “Look” therefore without concession, rough to the point of abruptness, critical if not scathing, mocking like Gavroche, caricatural like the chansonnier, jovial and exuberant but never falling into aggression and militancy, nor even vulgarism or insult…
The works exhibited by the Gaudois Artists will therefore reflect a vision, often sharp, restoring to things, people, and facts their true dimension. The artist thus conveys a message, that of a universe at once similar and different from ours.
This exhibition, an integral part of the Festival, will be named “Regards Gaudois.”
