Incorporated!

 Press Release
Incorporated!
5th edition of Les Ateliers de Rennes - contemporary art biennale
1 October - 11 December 2016
‘Incorporated! is the title of the 2016 edition of Les Ateliers de Rennes, and more than just a
theme, it provides the backdrop against which exhibitions takes place.
Incorporated! aims to provide a freeze-frame of a world where everything is in constant
circulation, in broken lines: our attention perpetually captured, then dispersed; a permanent
state of alert; a confusion of feelings. Ours is a world determined by the economy, by a
succession of crises constituting a system, and by a constant stream of information. The
contours of this world have become increasingly blurred. Technology and relationships,
consumers and products have become interchangeable, and the boundaries separating the
individual and the community, the private and the public spheres, the singular and the
multiple, have long since merged.
Incorporated! is an attempt to evoke, in the form of an exhibition, the feelings generated by
our incorporation or assimilation into the economic world, as reflected in works of art. Many
of the artists invited to participate in Incorporated! will create new work specifically for the
occasion and although their work does not deal directly with the economy, it instead explores
the reactions, impacts and tensions that result from such an ‘incorporation’: the physical and
psychic mobilization of human beings by abstract systems. These works, each in their own
way, resist interpretation, opposing a counter-power. They redistribute attention, mark a
pause, and allow silence to rule again for a while.’
-
François Piron
An increased number of participants
François Piron, curator of the 5th edition of Les Ateliers de Rennes sought to develop an
artistic project on a large scale, with a greater number of exhibitions on offer to the public.
These exhibitions, varying in size and scope, have been defined in close collaboration with
the actors and venues invited to participate for this edition.
The biennale now counts ten partner institutions in Rennes: Halle de la Courrouze (a
collaboration inaugurated during the 2014 edition), Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes, and
Frac Bretagne. New partners for the 2016 edition include La Criée Centre d’art
contemporain, the Galerie Art et Essai, Le Praticable, the Musée de la Danse and EESAB
Rennes (around a joint project), 40mcube and Lendroit éditions.
The curator also sought to continue to extend the biennale throughout Brittany (an action
initiated in 2014), allowing artists presented in Rennes to exhibit their work in other venues
throughout the region. This year, the École des Beaux-arts Émile Daubé / Galerie Raymond
Hains in Saint-Brieuc joins Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain in Brest and Le Quartier
Centre d’art contemporain in Quimper.
François Piron, biographical information
Born in 1972, François Piron is an independent exhibitions curator, art critic and editor. A
graduate from the University of Haute Bretagne (Rennes 2), he is responsible for the postgraduate programme of the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Lyon, and cofounder of the independent art space castillo/corrales in Paris. He led the Laboratoires
d'Aubervilliers from 2000 to 2005.
He has realized, among others, the following exhibitions Intouchable, l’idéal transparence,
Villa Arson, Nice, 2006; Société Anonyme, Le Plateau and Kadist Art Foundation, Paris,
2007-2008; Where the Lions are, Para/Site Art Centre, Hong Kong, 2008; Habiter
poétiquement le monde, LAM, Villeneuve d’Ascq, 2010 ; Locus Solus, Impressions de
Raymond Roussel, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid and Fondation Serralves, Porto, 2011-2012 ;
Nouvelles Impressions de Raymond Roussel, Palais de Tokyo, 2013 ; The President of the
Republic of Dreams, Galerie Buchholz, Berlin, 2013 ; Miroirs noirs, Galerie Frank Elbaz,
Paris, 2013 ; In These Great Times, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, 2014.
He has collaborated on numerous collective publications, including the catalogue of the 10th
Biennale of Lyon 2009, the Spanish pavilion of the 2011 Venice Biennale and the Dutch
pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2013. He recently contributed to the publications Thomas
Hirschhorn, Critical Laboratory, MIT Press, 2014, and Michel Leiris et Cie, Gallimard-Centre
Pompidou, 2015. He is preparing a monograph dedicated to the writings of Guy de Cointet,
which is to appear in 2016.
Portrait in the magazine Critique d’art : http://critiquedart.revues.org/13557
Les Ateliers de Rennes - contemporary art biennial
As the only contemporary art biennial to develop a theme that explores the relations between
art and economics / art and business, Les Ateliers de Rennes engages with today’s crucial
issues – work, value, the thought of the future – which artists approach in many different
ways. The biennial has had four editions: Valeurs Croisées in 2008 and Ce qui vient in 2010
(curated by Raphaële Jeune); Les Prairies in 2012 (curated by Anne Bonnin) and PLAY
TIME in 2014 (curated by Zoë Gray).
Organized by the association Art Norac (an association law 1901 founded and chaired by
Bruno Caron, head of the agro-food group Norac), Les Ateliers de Rennes have been
realised since the 2014 edition by the agency le troisième pôle and supported by many
institutional (City of Rennes - Rennes Métropole, the Ministry of Culture and Communication
- Drac Bretagne, Brittany Regional Council, General Council of Ille-et-Vilaine) and private
partners.
www.lestateliersderennes.fr
Press contact
e
2 Bureau, Martial Hobeniche
Phone: + 33 (1) 42 33 93 18
E-mail : [email protected]