POUR UN ART PAUVRE (INVENTAIRE DU MONDE ET DE L'ATELIER)

[TOWARDS AN IMPOVERISHED ART (inventory of the world and the workshop)]

Exhibition from 4 November 2011 till 15 January 2012

While the name art pauvre refers to the Italian Arte Povera movement of the 1960s, it may also be viewed as an attitude, whose relevance to an age of overproduction of objects and images, often placing the emphasis on the market value of art, is examined in this show. The eight featured artists, all sculptors, pay special attention to the medium in an open approach whereby the work is tightly bound up with both the artist's physical involvement and the host site. These works include concepts of instability, sometimes fragility, and almost 'self-formation', such is the way the work seems to be organically born out of the chosen medium. In this case, poverty refers not just to the media used and their origin but to the perfect superposition of form and media.

Often preferring to improvise, the artists aim to open up the boundary between the finished article and medium, and to link the exhibition work to studio procedures. 'To roll, to crease, to fold...' We recall the list of verbs proposed by Richard Serra in 1967-68. These works in turn appear to be interested in basic gestures, which does not rule out subtlety, witness the pastel colours of Karla Black, or the elegance of rhythms and forms of Gedi Sibony and Thea Djordjadze.

Rather than a finished product, the artwork appears as a process, recalling certain experiments of the 1970s. These artists choose whatever materials come to hand: expanded polystyrene, plaster, makeup products, peat, cash receipts, polythene, offcuts of plywood or spare medium, often packaging materials or other supplies found in the studio. Certain social occurrences, such as the meeting of smokers, the 'modern' aesthetic of metal structures, well grounded in contemporary life, can in turn be used as materials, just like clay or wood.

The exhibition includes recent and for the most part purpose-designed works by these artists, with special attention to the spatial layout. But in the creative flow, the show is also a moment to stop, during which sculpture is possible.

The chosen artists are: Karla Black (Scotland), Katinka Bock (France-Germany), Abraham Cruzvillegas (Mexico), Thea Djordjadze (Georgia-Germany), Gabriel Kuri (Mexico-Belgium), Guillaume Leblon (France), Gyan Panchal (France), Gedi Sibony (USA)

The bilingual French/English catalogue, with an essay by Joana Neves, is copublished with Archibooks + Sautereau publishers.

Carré d'Art-Musée d'art contemporain open daily except Mondays from 10 to 6

Admission: Euro 5, reduced rate: Euro 3.70.

Contact for the exhibition : Delphine Verrières - Carré d'Art Tel : +33 (0)4 66 76 35 70 - Fax : +33 (0)4 66 76 35 85 E-mail : communication@carreartmusee.com