(Paris) GNS @ Palais de Tokyo (*w/ John Menick)

Date/Time: 05/06/2003 12:00 am

PALAIS DE TOKYO
Site de création contemporaine
13 avenue du Président Wilson 75116 Paris
T 01 4723 5401 F 01 4720 1531
www.palaisdetokyo.com
>>PRESS RELEASE
« GNS, GLOBAL NAVIGATION SYSTEM »
05JUNE-07SEPT 2003
>>05 June 2003 : cocktail beginning at 7 PM at the Palais de Tokyo.
RSVP : presse@palaisdetokyo.com or T 01 47 23 52 00.
>>INVITED ARTISTS :
Franz ACKERMANN, BUREAU D’ETUDES, Nathan CARTER, Wim DELVOYE, OCEAN EARTH, Dominique GONZALEZ-FOERSTER, Thomas HIRSCHHORN, Laura HORELLI, Pierre HUYGHE, Pierre JOSEPH, Jakob KOLDING, Matthieu LAURETTE, Mark LOMBARDI, Julie MEHRETU, John MENICK, Aleksandra MIR, Henrik OLESEN, Kirsten PIEROTH, Marjetica POTRC, Pia RONICKE, Matthew RITCHIE, Sean SNYDER, STALKER, Simon STARLING.
>>
« Through the works of 24 international artists, the exhibition « GNS » (Global Navigation System) gives voice to the hypothesis that topography is a major element in contemporary art and a key to understanding it.
« GNS » raises an important question : what motivates artists, employing a broad range of means, to REPRESENT today’s world while the media overwhelm us with images of the planet? Using processes involving inquiry, exploration and investigation, the artists taking part in « GNS » proceed by collecting data in order to produce forms, subsequently working from information that is « processed » in a variety of styles, from diagrams to documentaries, painting to installations…
Maps, charts, satellite images, still photos, sampling, social studies, diagrams and tables—never has geography played such a significant role in art before today. We would have to go back several centuries to find artists exploring the physical world with such energy and enthusiasm, although there is one important difference : in the age that witnessed the voyages of MAGELLAN and Sir Francis DRAKE, artists contributed to discovering a planet that was largely unknown, whereas artists of our day and age travel over a globe whose least square meter (or nearly) has been surveyed, crisscrossed by communication networks and scrutinized by hundreds of satellites.
Thus, geography today has nothing in common with the discipline in the past ; the modes of « graphein » (to write) have changed as much as « gē » (earth) has changed. Geography is the science whose aim is « the description of the earth, the forms of its outer layer, and the different aspects of life on the surface of the globe » ; the geography of contemporary artists now explores modes of inhabitation, the many networks amid which we live, the circuits by which we travel, and above all the economic, social and political formations that circumscribe human territories ».
Nicolas BOURRIAUD
Exhibition curator
Co-director of the Palais de Tokyo
>>THE PAVILION AND GNS
The Pavilion’s 2002/2003 roster of artists: Quentin ARMAND, Angela DETANICO, Andreas FOGARASI, Rafael LAIN, Adriana LARA DOMINGUEZ, Lucas MANCIONE, Nicolas MILHÉ, Émilie RENARD, Jiri SKALA, Johann VAN AERDEN , Gabriela VANGA.
Active since the spring of 2001, The Pavilion is both an art laboratory that offers young artists a space for engaging in research and debate, and a production site at the heart of the Palais de Tokyo.
Headed by Ange LECCIA, The Pavilion accepted in this year’s eight-month program 11 young artists and art critics who were chosen through a truly international recruitment process.
This program of research involves a number of different moments of production and reflection that assume a variety of forms, including workshops, trips, lectures and exhibitions. These activities are realized while working with professionals and artists accompanying the project.
This year participants in The Pavilion’s program were selected with the aim of mounting a collective piece called « DELTA », which is to be presented at this time.
The artists involved in The Pavilion program will also be contributing individually to « GNS ».
>>CATALOG
>>ARTFILMS PRODUCTION
As a part of the Focus series, in partnership with the Palais de Tokyo, Artfilms offers to the artists the possibility of co-editing a 6 minutes video about their work. These videos will be presented during the exhibition.
The exhibition « GNS » will take over a large part of the Palais de Tokyo, from the large gallery under the skylight (800m2) right up to the entrance.
This exhibition is presented in partnership with Beaux-Arts magazine and Arte/Le Dessous des cartes
Access/Information
Palais de Tokyo
Site for contemporary arts
13, avenue du Président Wilson
F-75116 Paris
T +33 1 47 23 38 86
www.palaisdetokyo.com
open from noon to midnight from Tuesday to Sunday.
Admission :6 euros/4 euros
Free for under 18 years old, and every first Sundays.
Metro the line 9 : Alma-Marceau or Iéna / bus lines 32, 42, 63, 72, 80, 82, 92
RER C : Alma-Marceau / Parking : avenue du Président Wilson.
Contacts
Press – presse@palaisdetokyo.com
Marie MESSINA : T 01 47 23 52 00
communication – naiasore@palaisdetokyo.com
Naïa SORE : T 01 47 23 54 57
The Palais de Tokyo, site for contemporary arts, enjoys the support of the French Ministry of Culture and Communications/the Plastic Arts Delegation, the Caisse des dépôts et consignations, Pioneer, Illy Caffè, Habitat, Radio FG (Les Plans Capitaux) and Mouvement.net, le site indisciplinaire des arts vivants.