Ediția XI

The Memory Palace

Focus on the French art scene with the Marcel Duchamp Prize

The ‘method of loci’, also known as ‘memory palace’, is an art of memory practiced since Antiquity. It is based on the memory of places already well known, to which we associate by various means the new elements we wish to memorise. It appears as a common thread that can accompany us throughout our lives, showing that the roots of the future lie in the past. "The Memory Palace" reveals how contemporary artists take hold of the past to reinterpret it, towards a hopeful future. The exhibition takes over the second floor of Art Safari, located in the Dacia-Romania Palace. Built in 1882 in the heart of Bucharest, this building full of memories and its successive uses represent a form of resilience for Romania’s historical legacy. The exhibition highlights a selection of eight artists and two duos of the French art scene (from different generations and cultural backgrounds), who participated in the Marcel Duchamp Prize in the past fifteen years. The exhibition space is located in former offices, creating a labyrinthine path. Some of these artists revisit the Western cultural history, for instance Farah Atassi with her vivid canvases, subjective visions of the 20th century history of painting, or Clément Cogitore whose reinterpretation of Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes with krump dancers allows this 18th century opera-ballet to enter a new urban and political space. Others take a fresh look at crafts: Mircea Cantor thus imagines a monumental rosace made of used cans, using the technics of upcycling while combining Middle Age inspiration and contemporary consumer society. Daniel Dewar and Grégory Gicquel for their part question traditional wood sculpture, mixing different know-how and life forms in their surrealist furniture. It is also about creating bridges between the past and the future, with Katinka Bock filming the shipwreck of a boat full of stones, creating a landscape undetermined in space and time, or Enrique Ramírez’s neon work stating in French that "The future never ceases to repeat itself, inseparable from the past." Memory functions as a guiding thread in the exhibition, whether a ghostly memory with Tatiana Trouvé’s installation, a historical memory with Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige’s geological cores extracted from Parisian cultural sites, or a political memory with Thu-Van Tran’s clouds, delicate works evoking the tragic actions that can be done in wartime. Finally, Michel Blazy lets time do his work, and various plants grow freely above-ground. Artists in "The Memory Palace" show that the present allows us to bring together the broken bonds of the past, to offer new readings in order to excise its traumas or on the contrary to revisit it for inspiration while different knowledge and know-how are put forward. These artists question our legacies, open the field of possibilities and invoke stories beyond human memory, in a perpetual renewal.
With: Farah Atassi, Michel Blazy, Katinka Bock, Mircea Cantor, Clément Cogitore, Daniel Dewar & Grégory Gicquel, Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, Enrique Ramírez, Thu-Van Tran, Tatiana Trouvé.

Curator Daria de Beauvais, asis. Lisa Colin