It is firm and juicy, bursting with sun-ripened joie de vivre: the water melon put on display by France’s young talent, Olivier Babin, in the exhibition »notre histoire« at the Palais de Tokyo. Behind this deceptively real-looking melon of painted bronze, a painting of a slice of melon extends across the wall like a huge trademark. Babin is skilled at irony: the title of this work is »Towards Infinite Freshness«. It is shown in the context of an exhibition that aims to show the »young, up-and-coming art of France« - endlessly fresh.
Babin’s work demonstrates a problem of current art, particularly Neo-Pop: all pictures look like trademarks. There cannot be anything new or »fresh« in the garden of pictures. How can one see pictures when everything is a picture? How can one think critically after the critique of critical thought? This cardinal question of »post-post-modernity« is at present causing a boom in theory in France. The wave has caught up all areas of the art world, from galleries, institutions and collectors to artists, critics and curators. Following the conceptual Jocelyn Wolff Gallery in Paris, Thomas Bernard in Bordeaux has now taken to the paths of reflection on art with the Cortex Athletico Gallery, and organises round-table discussions, workshops and conferences alongside the exhibitions. The lectures and seminars, featuring some prestigious names, that are put on by the organiser artbooster in the wealthy Paris suburb of Saint-Germain-en-Laye are also well-attended despite the high participation fees.
In the increasingly diffuse field of art, the borderlines between aisthesis and noesis, between representation and cognition, have become fluid. Some time ago, in the exhibition » A short text on the possibilities of creating an economy of equivalence« in the Palais de Tokyo, Liam Gillick challenged the willingness of the audience to think with a visually sparing reflection on art, market and responsibility. Gillick develops his theory in the field of art because »it is possible to do things there that are no long possible in the traditional fields of science«. Marc-Olivier Wahler, the new director of the Palais de Tokyo, also wants to use art as a way of stimulating thought. He sees art as »research, not an object of research«; one of his keywords is »transversality«, meaning the crossing and »telescoping« of different social fields.
»Transversale« is the name of a German-French initiative that aims to carry out »exploration in art and science«. In a printed yearbook, on an Internet site and at various events, thinkers who are normally associated with a university context are found next to artists who have made theory part of their artistic practice. Such transdisciplinary projects are often transnational as well, as is shown by the journal »livraison«, put out by the Strasbourg initiative rhinocéros, which contains a large number of reflective visual contributions in addition to literary, philosophical essays. While speaking on the topic »How do images think?« at a discussion put on by transversale in the packed hall of the École nationale supérieure des Beaux Arts, the art critic Cédric Vincent asked whether »for us to understand how our thought is influenced by images, images themselves may have to become the place of thought. Perhaps we have to redefine what thought is.«
Where does this demand originate for a reassessment of thought, this new desire for theory? First, people are looking for answers to current questions, like those regarding globalisation or post-criticism. Secondly, they are looking for new spaces of identification, an echo of their own realities of life: many members of the art audience have themselves a »transversal« history, move »flexibly« through various social and professional fields. Thirdly, people are simply disappointed by the still prevailing jargon of non-commitment. The essayist, novelist and university lecturer Guy Scarpetta sums it up: »We are suffering from a serious lack of discussion and debate. Almost no one really makes it clear where s/he stands. We really want to have a good yell at each other again for a whole afternoon about some artistic approach!«
The professionals among the discourse-makers often fail when it comes down to highlighting problems and mediating conflicts. This was the case when the cream of French art critics recently gathered at the Palais de Tokyo, including Paul Ardenne, Philippe Dagen (Le Monde), Christophe Domino (Le Journal des Arts) and Eric Troncy (Frog). Taking the rather bland question »What does art play?« as a basis, the aim of the discussion was to locate the position of current criticism. The meeting was a disaster, alternating between anecdotes, personal attacks, political polemics and self-promotion. A peer group drivelled on in front of the duped audience about future values of art history, and obviously had no intention of sharing its power to define them.
While famous critics are busy shoulder-slapping themselves, the redefinition of fields of thought is taking place elsewhere. For example on Monday evenings in the privately sponsored venue Espace Paul Ricard. Here, those with a thirst for thinking meet up at »Fresh Théorie«, headed by the critic Christophe Kihm (artpress) and the journalist Mark Alizart. The title, »like a chewing gum with the flavour blackberry-melon«, as Olivier Seguret wrote in »Libération«, derives fresh irony from the reformulation of »French Theory«. The heroes of the 1970s - Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida or Jean-François Lyotard’s »end of the great narratives« - have again become the currency of the art discourse after taking a detour via the USA.
The master thinkers of the seventies, explains 31-year-old Alizart in the first anthology, a small blue book of the same size as Mao’s Little Red Book, were not uninvolved in a mental state that prepared the field for neo-liberalism and its liquefactions and flexibilisations. Under the influence of almost sect-like, exclusive university circles, patriarchs dominated »French theory«. The new thinkers are located in the more open field of art, and want to »refresh« the old approaches in order to »change the change«. Here, »Fresh Théorie« follows the credo of Pop, which maintains that you have to go through the cultural industry to overcome it. Many of the authors, including Marc-Olivier Wahler and Cédric Vincent, playfully come up with complex philosophical reflections based around mobile ring tones, biker gangs or the film »Matrix«. Where games are played, the sense of the seriousness of the matter is lost; more systematisation and compression would be needed to avoid slipping into the convenient attitude of »easy thinking«. In France, a new thirst for theory is being quenched with fresh juices from transversal fields, juices that make one want more - »towards infinite freshness«. Herman Melville’s »Bartleby«, which Claire Fontaine quotes in the art/theory pamphlet »Pacemaker«, could perhaps help in gaining a more profound objectivity: »I would prefer not to«.
»notre histoire« at the Palais de Tokyo to 7 May 2006, http://www.palaisdetokyo.com
Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, http://www.galeriewolff.com
Galerie Cortex Athletico, http://www.cortexathletico.com
»artbooster«, http://www.artbooster.fr
»transversale«, http://www.transversale.org
»livraison«, http://www.rhinoceros-etc.org
Ècole supérieure des Beaux Arts, http://www.ensba.fr
Espace Paul Ricard, http://www.espacepaulricard.com
»Fresh Théorie«, http://www.freshtheorie.fr
»Pacemaker« is produced by http://www.toastingagency.org
Translated by Timothy Jones