Weekend in Paris: the must

The Palais de Tokyo presents Exposé es, a group exhibition, e Ma thought sérielle, a staff of Miriam Cahn, until May 14th. Curated by Emma Lavignegeneral manager of the Collection Pinault, and by Marta Dziewanska, curator at the Kunstmuseum in Bern, this is the first retrospective held in a French institution by Miriam Cahn (Basel, 1949). A feminist and anti-nuclear activist, present at the Venice Art Biennale in 1984, Cahn is one of the most interesting Swiss artists in the current art scene. Without following a precise theme or chronology – a mirror of the chaos of current societies – the exhibition space offers over two hundred works from 1980 to today, such as the installation Kriegsraum Frühling (2022) looking at the war in Ukraine, Raum-Ich / Räumlich-Ich (2018), which addresses existential issues, but also Lesen In Staub (LIS) – 1 Weiblicher Monat (1988) and Flüchten Müssen + Wesen Wesentlich. Paintings and drawings, in different formats and in vivid colors or in intense black and white, are placed without frames on the walls at eye level for a more constructive impact, also revealing a gesture free from academicisms. “An exhibition is a work in itself and I see it as a performance”. asserts Cahn. The path is distorted by atomic mushrooms, by shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea, where the human, physically naked and with a barely defined face, wanders like a ghost in Cahn’s canvases to tell stories of war, of rapes in scenarios marked by chaos and death . The ferocity of the narratives that unfold in Cahn’s works is devastating, as he unfilteredly denounces violence in all its meanings, staging the abused and the rapist, as his perpetuation in the history of humanity. These fragments of life, devoid of humanity, arouse strong anger and frustration, and have given rise to many controversies in the trade press as well as on social networks.

Curated by Francois Piron, Exposé es it is an exhibition that starts from Ce que le sida m’a fait – Art et activisme à la fin du XXe siècle (JRP|Editions, 2017), a book by Elisabeth Lebovici. Consultant to the exhibition, Lebovici is a critic, art historian and activist in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The exhibition explores the 1980s AIDS epidemic – the deadliest disease of the last century – and its impact on creation through some thirty international artists. The intent of Exposé.es is to talk about what happened beyond social stereotypes, fears and prejudices. You see Benoît Pieron which disseminates groups of chairs made with patchwork of ‘white’ hospital sheets, proposes a sound installation Oxygene (29 minutes, 2023) e Rayon (2023). It is a video installation made up of a wooden hospital door with a glass slit and reconstructed with a projection system; it is a work that refers to the malfunctioning hospital for AIDS patients. Born in 1983, Benoît Piéron was born with meningitis and treated leukemia as a child, spending his life in hospitals. If his body is a political symbol, his work is an act of survival. Bambanani Women’s Group is a women’s collective founded in 2002 in Cape Town, whose name comes from the word Xhosa which means ‘to be together and united’. This self-help group reflects on the experience of HIV/AIDS through the depiction of colorful life-size maps of the body, to reveal the effects of the virus on everyday life. These are women who received antiretroviral drugs thanks to a project supported by Doctors Without Borders. Here we find the Body map Of I don’t know, i.e. a celebration of the victory against this evil, also expressed in words written in italics. The South African artist is also in the collection of Museum of World Culture in Sweden. Black Audio Film Collective (1982, active until 1988), was founded in Britain against the backdrop of nascent police brutality and racial unrest. Archive photos, news extracts and film sequences explore and reflect, according to the aesthetics of the documentary, on social and cultural oppression, racism and economic decline. Moyra Davey (1958) is a Canadian photographer, director and author, whose work intertwines between image and literature, which presents visitor (2022), a series of 18 photographs made for Expose e.g in which he evokes, with autobiographical notes, the US health system. Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Nan Goldin, Pascal Lievre, Jesse Darling, Zoe Leonard, Marion Scemama I am among the invited artists.

Curated by Agnes Gryczkowska the exhibition Au-delà, Rituels pour un nouveau monde welcomes figurative art, music, theater and fashion by about twenty artists around the theme of the ritual, a Lafayette Anticipations until May 7th. Collective or individual, archaic or modern, sacred or pagan, rituals have always been active in society due to their effect on connecting people. The sound creations of Kali Malone envelop this path that invites us to discover new contemporary rituals, between human and non-human, trance, metamorphosis, shamanism and metempsychosis. The four natural elements are at the center of several new and historic installations such as in Songs for living (2021), a video by Korakrit Arunanondchai And Alex Gvojic. A diverse group of adults dance around a massive bonfire to soar in transformational rituals, where the individual joins the collective to create a new higher power. On-site installation Oracle of Beltane Of White bondi, refers to the Celtic holiday of the same name which celebrates spring on May 1st. This presents a series of wooden poles, decorated with crystals and arranged in a pentagram on a ground full of salt which sees wells of water with a purifying action. Not far away are the works on Cuba, the birthplace of Ana Mendieta, known eco-feminist pioneer, but also the Endogonidian tragedy (2001-2004), by Romeo Castellucci, in which he develops individual rituals for a contemporary and new look at the meaning of community. The musical and mystical universe of Janina Kraupe-Świderskathe ritual objects of Matthew Angelo Harrison and of Christelle Oyiria Punic votive stele of Louvreand much more to discover.

The Bourse de Commerce-Pinault Collection welcomes until 11 September Avant l’orage, with about twenty works including immersive installations, unstable landscapes and new ecosystems against the background of climate change. There are several notable creations, such as Texas Louise (282 x 665 cm, 1971), from the series Maps Paintings Of Frank Bowling, icon of abstract expressionism. This immense canvas, as political as it is meditative, sees a cartography of the world lightly outlined in bright colors and shades of yellow, orange, red and gray. The work of the British-Guyanese artist is here in dialogue with the video of Judy Chicago, Women and smoke (1971,1972, 2016) of the series Atmospheres, an important reference of eco-feminist art. The monumental installation of Danh Vo it distorts the rotunda of the building – with a circular plan and surmounted by a majestic dome – with a dystopian landscape, like a futuristic archive of nature. A series of high wooden scaffoldings support long tree trunks, fragments of ancient sculptures and a sort of herbarium with framed photos of flowers correlated by Latin inscriptions. Lerato laka le a phela le a phela le a phela / my love is alive, is alive, is alive (three-channel video of 17′, 2022) by Dineo Seshee Bopapeis a dip in the ocean, as a vital element that welcomes rites of communion with nature, but also a place of death. Presage (8’25”, 2018) is an immersive video by Hicham Berrada, in which chemical reactions activated inside a glassy container of water produce an imaginative seascape. Edited by Emma Lavignegeneral manager, and by Nicolas-Xavier Ferrandresponsible for research, this exhibition also presents works by Jonathas DeAndrade, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Pierre Huyghe, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané you hate Diana Thater Thu Van Tran.