We are pleased to receive and publish this contribution from Christian Depardieu, the publication director of PerformArts.
By a curious coincidence (?) an exhibition proclaimed “50 artists” is staged in Nice, while in Saint-Paul “50 artists, a collection, friends society of the Maeght foundation, 45 years of acquisition” is opening (December 17, 2011 – March 18, 2012). The similarity stops at the number, as you will see by visiting or reading the comparison published in the quarterly paper magazine performArts n°12 (Winter 2012), of which the last part is given here.
With Ici Nice, at the old slaughterhouses dubbed, with a Déroulède-like tact, Chantier Sang Neuf (water our furrows?) exhibition and publication subtitled Guide of the city by contemporary artists, (with a “notebook” edition , Bernard Chauveau publisher).
Surrounded by a few official mandarin white hairs, the vision is local, partial, therefore fragile and, as per the imperative trend of the time, more diversified, contemporary media obliges.
If one seeks a meaning in this well-published Notebook of about a hundred pages, it is to have none, except to give the addresses of about fifty artists participating in this exhibition in the old slaughterhouses of the city of Nice, premises pending transformation for several years. The exhibition is a juxtaposition of works of different mediums, with no common denominator other than their authors’ affiliation, directly or indirectly, to the City of Nice.
Besides the merit of existing, one can question the poverty of such a proposal: What is the interest in offering a disjointed, meaningless exhibition entirely turned towards its own microcosm, whatever may be, in a shadow that would be stenographed, the certain quality of a few of the works? The criteria, objectives, and meaning remain obscure: many, two-thirds, of the most notable artists have been forgotten, not even contacted! It seems like friends and friends of friends were gathered, improvised, at random meetings or obscure motivations. The result is a catalog of artists who seem “municipally” acceptable, a gathering reminiscent of exhibitions by Salon categories (women artists, postal worker artists, disabled artists, artists this or that, local or elsewhere artists…), which rarely remain in memory…
It is not with such ventures that the image of Fine Arts on the French Riviera will rise to the heights of those in Paris or Lyon with its prestigious Biennale that undoubtedly enriches its art school – which a magazine recently ranked as the top in French institutions…
Incomprehensible in a city like Nice where at least a dozen cultural figures have a good overall view of the art of recent decades.
Not everyone can improvise themselves as an exhibition curator!
by Christian Depardieu
