DIRTY CHURCHES performs SIREN,
November 21, 2023
Lorenzo Pace
January 17, 2024FRED FOREST Archives and Media Actions at Pompidou and WhiteBox / A Seminal Artist Series #36
Renowned French Media and Digital artist Fred Forest is set to present a survey media and actions exhibition at POMPIDOU center and WhiteBox Art Space starting on January 23, 2024.
In alignment with his long-standing principles, Forest's exhibition will eschew traditional object-based displays in favor of a presentation focused on a comprehensive web archive. The archive encompasses a substantial collection of 296 videos and 266 actions, reflecting Forest's global artistic engagements. The forthcoming exhibition at WhiteBox offers a rare glimpse into Forest's diverse body of work, providing audiences with an opportunity to explore the artist's extensive archives.
As a co-founder of the Sociological Art Collective (1974) and the Aesthetics of Communication movement (1983), Forest has played a pivotal role in shaping the contemporary art landscape. His extensive career includes participation in prestigious events like the Biennale of Venice and the Documenta of Kassel, earning awards at the Bienal do São Paulo and the Festival of Electronic Arts of Locarno. Forest's archives, including video works, were integrated into the collection of the Institute National de l'Audiovisuel of France in 2004. Holding a state doctorate from the Sorbonne, Forest has taught at renowned institutions and authored influential books on art, communication, and technology.
Fred Forest explores the artistic and emancipatory potential of communication technologies and the limits of the power relationship that they establish over the individual. Based on numerous actions in France and internationally, this exhibition presents a set of archives of this work which, since the 1960s, has systematically accompanied the evolution of new media.
The exhibition you are visiting is the result of a long process of thought, which ultimately led me to choose the most radical form of presentation possible: THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE OBJECT.
The form I have chosen is a deliberate break with the immemorial tradition of museums, where since the dawn of time we have endeavored to present tangible material objects, hung on picture rails, in display cases or on pedestals. This concept took shape with me in 2006 at the XXVIIth Sao Paulo Biennial under the name Biennale 3000, following on from the XIIth Biennale 2000, which I created in 1975 to oppose the official Biennale on political and ethical grounds. The choice of participating artists was an arbitrary one, made exclusively by institutions and the art market, with no consultation of the artists who were the primary stakeholders. The Biennale 3000 was a resounding success.
Click:
MAC (Musée d'Art Contemporain) de Sao Paulo
Demonstrating that one artist alone, with no financial or institutional resources, was capable of competing with a state institution. It was already an online-only Biennale that ran on its own for some fifteen years, before being destroyed by some profoundly moronic individuals. You know, we're talking about one of those destructive species that exist in all fields, and who feel a perverse pleasure in eliminating anything of interest to others ... before one day being eliminated in their turn! This "immateriality" already highlighted in the art of an artist like Yves Klein, as my friend Pierre Restany used to tell me, finds a wider field of application for me on the politico-social level with the evolution of techniques and the idea of generalizing online exhibitions. Which, moreover, is good for the economy and virtuous, ecologically speaking, avoiding unnecessary and untimely transport of works around the world for the pleasure of a privileged few.
A type of exhibition of which I can be proud to have been one of the precursors, having conceived, produced and introduced it, despite internal resistance, thanks to the open-mindedness of Laurent Lebon, current President of a major national museum. This was also the case in 2017 during my retrospective at the Centre Pompidou, where only its President at the time, Alain Seban, supported it against all its curators.
I therefore present this exhibition as probably: the first official exhibition of its kind ever held, to our knowledge, in a museum of this importance, and exclusively online.
It begins with a title chosen by the institution:
"Fred Forest and information technologies:
archives of video and digital projects".
It stretches from 1962 to 2024, with over 246 actions and 296 online videos.
“It took me a lot of energy, strategy and even cunning to get to where I am today. I invite my fellow artists to regain their confidence. Let them know that the world is theirs, but only if they want it badly enough... If I wasn't able, in my lifetime, to convince others to follow in my footsteps, I know that in future generations, there are many of them, ready to take up the baton and restore dignity to artists in the face of a market whose values are distorted by speculation and arbitrariness.”
At the very moment when the Centre Pompidou is closing its main building for renovations, I'm offering it an unlimited participatory extension across global networks. An exceptional marketing operation with no agency fees. Yet another gift from the artist to the Centre Pompidou, following the one he made a few months ago with the donation of his: NFT-Archeology
(invaluable because it was with this work that I anticipated the NFT concept in 1996, when its code was sold under the hammer of Maître Binoche at Drouot). Our project multiplies the Centre Pompidou's surface area in square meters ad infinitum, creating an unlimited Territory. Unlimited by your imagination, your sense of the disruptive and the playful. For every human being, the appropriation of a Territory takes place after birth, through the first steps they take in discovering the world. You'll be stepping into art yourself, with the opportunity to take part in a group exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, probably for the first time. Whether you're in New York, Osaka or Carpentras, you'll have all the time you need to create a real work of art by dressing your drawn foot in all the shapes and colors of the rainbow. (Factual information to follow) Another novelty introduced with this "work-network-participation", which will give you the opportunity to make a fleeting appropriation of the Centre Pompidou's picture rails: a large digital screen, where all the digital submissions will follow one after the other, with the possibility of having a printed certificate of participation issued to you.
Thank you for your generosity!
NB: Neither the Centre nor I can be held responsible for the accidental loss of your foot. To protect yourself against this hypothetical and absurd inconvenience, you'll need to take out free virtual insurance. Finally, we'd like to point out that if, for whatever reason, you can't walk back home, you'll have to take a cab... which you'll have to pay for yourself.
Fred Forest