The Space between Works

  • Publish On 18 November 2017
  • Loris Gréaud
  • 2 minutes

Though he may be reluctant when it comes to biographies and chronological presentations, Loris Gréaud announces his upcoming exhibition for Stream, bringing to a conclusion the trilogy Cellar Door, The Unplayed Notes and Study for a Solipsism. His work defies description and is impossible to categorize, allowing metabolic themes to blossom—temporal dynamics, death and destruction, combustion and energy—and seizing hold of architectural environments to the benefit of a spatio-temporal experience which belongs to a more global body of work that is the trajectory between these artworks. Much like the living, his work outgrows its contexts, attaching itself more-so to processes of production than to fixed objects.

The exhibition opening in February 2018 at the Galerie Max Hetzler in Paris, is the preface to the final volume of the “trilogy” that has been imagined by artist Loris Gréaud since 2008: Study for a Solipsism.

The first two opuses, Cellar Door (2008–11) and The Unplayed Notes (2012–17), were developed in prestigious institutions, including the Palais de Tokyo (Paris), the ICA (London), the Kunsthalle of Sankt Gallen, the Kunsthalle of Vienna, and the Dallas Contemporary museum, allowing the artist to establish a very particular trajectory.

The exhibition at the Galerie Max Hetzler will be the point of departure for the final movement of this triptych that has only just recently been revealed, one that will be prolonged in an exceptional program at the MSU Broad Museum (East-Lansing, USA), at the Hermitage Museum (Saint Petersburg), and at Kunsthalle Darmstadt (Germany), to ultimately arrive at its destination on the grounds of the Casa Wabi Foundation (whose exceptional architecture was created by Tadao Ando) in Puerto Escondido (Mexico), where a strange sculpture park will be inaugurated.

Simultaneously, the new adjoining building of the Cellar Door studio, designed with architect Claude Parent (1923–2016) will be unveiled: somewhere between a bunker and a mausoleum of the future.

Cellar Door sought to address the issue of the place for work and for thinking; The Unplayed Notes questions the movement of artworks and the space that exists between them; this time, it is the idea of their destination that comes to haunt this third volume. Study for a Solipsism (2008–2020) is an ambitious collection whose final installment proposes a painting that will be as fascinating as it will be singular. Black milk, the song of dead stars, secrets, silence, and disappearances will notably bring rhythm to the artist’s prelude to HIS EXHIBITION at the Max Hetzler Gallery.”

NB: MSU Broad Museum, an exhibition curated by Marc-Olivier Wahler; the Hermitage Museum (Dimitri Ozerkov); Kunsthalle Darmstadt (Leon Krempel); the Casa Wabi Foundation (Pablo Leon de la Barra).

This article was initially published in Stream 04 – The Paradoxes of the living in November 2017.

order the book-magazine

Bibliography

explore

Article
Article

Podcast transcript: urban metabolism, at the heart of the matter

In urban planning and geography, the concept of metabolism is frequently discussed. This organicist metaphor likens a territory to a body, traversed by flows of materials and energy that link it to its environment. From a quantitative perspective, these flows can be measured over time and space to assess what a territory consumes, processes, and produces. However, a qualitative approach is equally crucial, examining the political and social trade-offs that shape urban metabolisms. With this in mind, we spoke with two researchers, Clément Dillenseger and Pierre Desvaux, who have explored the waste sector to analyze the socio-technical infrastructures that underpin metabolism and the imaginaries that shape its perception.

Discover
Article
Article

The potential of the night

Once a sanctuary for dreams and imagination, nighttime has now been relegated to the mere role of a utilitarian prelude to daytime. Nocturnal realms possess an alchemical power capable of transfiguring our perceptions. However, when viewed through the lens of urban uses, the night also exacerbates inequalities and raises questions about the possibility of achieving an urban night that is accessible to everyone. Exploring the range of possibilities associated with the night reveals it as a space-time where complex interactions are woven that could be revitalized through a chronotopic and inclusive architecture.

Discover
Vidéo
Vidéo

Beautiful like an encounter on the glass roof of colored clouds

For Daniel Buren, architecture is an open-air studio. In an exclusive interview with architect Philippe Chiambaretta, he talks about his site-specific work, where art and architecture meet, just like the Nuages Colorés that cover the scales of the 175 Haussmann glass roof.

Discover
Article
Article

Reshaping myths to reveal pressing realities

Ashfika Rahman is a visual artist based in Bangladesh, who recently won the Future Generation Art Prize awarded by the PinchukArtCentre in Ukraine. Faced with the overwhelming power of information systems that are serving dominant narratives, she is working on creating alternative medium of expression, giving their voice back to marginalized communities in her homeland, particularly women. Through her art, Rahman questions myths, folk tales and widely spread prejudice that are still shaping our cultures and legitimating violence, adopting a contemporary and feminist lense. We met with her to discuss her recent work, Behula These Days where she brings together ancient crafts and new techniques to share the poignant and heart-wrenching experiences of women living in one of the most floodprone areas in Bangladesh.

Discover
Article
Article

Using AI to tell history — podcast transcription

Read our discussion on the subject of generative AI with Raphaël Doan, a specialist in the sciences of Antiquity and author of the uchronia Si Rome n’avait pas chuté (If Rome hadn’t fallen), an essay imagining, with the help of AI, what might have happened if the Industrial Revolution had taken place under the Roman Empire. Through this experiment, fascinating possibilities for historical and archaeological research are outlined, as AI facilitates the processing of archives, the translation of lost languages and the deciphering of burnt texts.

Discover
Article

Capturing the Cityscape Through Photography

Émilie d'Orgeix, Corinne Feïss-Jehel, Pierre-Jérôme Jehel

Article

Capturing the Cityscape Through Photography

Over the span of several months, students from GOBELINS Paris scouted La Défense, examining the iconic business district from the fresh perspective of urban metabolism. As part of a documentary workshop led by Pierre-Jérôme Jehel and Laetitia Guillemin (GOBELINS) and designed in partnership with researchers from the City-Metabolism Chair at PSL University, some thirty students explored this territory. They did so by treating it not as a mere backdrop but as a living organism, traversed by flows, tensions, and rhythms, using photography as a tool for revelation. Their projects, located at the crossroads of artistic creation and research, unveil an alternative reading of this mineral space, between invisible flows and underlying tensions. Both sensitive and rigorous, this inquiry is chronicled here by Corinne Feïss Jehel (EPHE-PSL), Pierre-Jérôme Jehel, and Émilie d’Orgeix (EPHE-PSL) as part of a research project conducted by the City-Metabolism Chair (which is financially supported by PCA-STREAM, Artelia, and Groupama Immobilier).

Discover
Vidéo

Björn Geldhof

Vidéo

Culture as a weapon

In this exclusive interview, Björn Geldhof, director of the PinchuckArtCentre in Kyiv, looks at the evolution of the centre’s cultural programming since the outbreak of war in Ukraine. From an institutional space whose primary role was to open up the country to the world, the centre has evolved into a platform for committed and activist research, carrying the voice of Ukraine throughout Europe. By using art to document the conflict, the PinchukArtCentre uses a factual approach to raise awareness in the spheres of opinion and decision-making, thus affirming its role as the country’s ‘artistic arm’.  

Discover
Article
Article

Educating Citizen Architects: for a meaningful architecture

Andrew Freear runs the Rural Studio program at Auburn School of Architecture (USA). He believes that schools of architecture have an ethical responsibility to train citizen architects who are locally committed to concrete projects and experientially connected to contexts and places. To design an inclusive city, the Studio adopts an experimental field approach, combining analysis of the territory’s endemic problems, understanding of residents’ needs and new construction techniques. Read the full interview published in STREAM 05!

Discover