The studio (making of)

A pro­ject by L’Ambassade (Cécilia Becanovic and Maxime Thieffine)

“My ideal studio would be something like Saint Jerôme’s reading room in the painting by Antonello da Messina” Raphaël Zarka

Bétonsalon pro­poses an exper­i­mental pro­ject that aims to pre­sent a col­lec­tive work of research, com­pleted by the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the public (stu­dents, neigh­bors, researchers in art and in the sciences, art pro­fes­sionals, artists…).

For three weeks, Bétonsalon will not hold an exhi­bi­tion, but instead will become a research work­shop directed by the cura­to­rial duo L’Ambassade (Cécilia Becanovic and Maxime Thieffine). This work­shop aims to create a database on rep­re­sen­ta­tions of the artist’s studio.

This study con­sists of two stages: the first doc­u­ments the rep­re­sen­ta­tions of the artist’s studio and mythology that sur­rounds it (drawing from books, repro­duc­tions, films, etc.), while the second looks toward the reality of cur­rent artists’ stu­dios.

Like a blog set up in the space, each par­tic­i­pant is invited to leave, or post, his or her com­men­tary or doc­u­ments. Visitors as well as researchers from the Paris Diderot University – Paris 7, artists, artist assis­tants, cura­tors and other art pro­fes­sionals can follow the researchers as they work, or can even join the work team under the form of con­sul­ta­tions, dis­cus­sions and round tables, by pro­ducing doc­u­ments and recorded inter­views or by con­ducting studio visits. The work­shop will cul­mi­nate in a pre­sen­ta­tion of the col­lected infor­ma­tion in a form that is at once ped­a­gog­ical, poetic and playful. The results of this research will be shown at Bétonsalon prior to taking defini­tive form for the exhi­bi­tion “The Form Theory”, orga­nized by Manuel Cirauqui of the Tarn International Artistic Laboratory (LAIT, formerly Cimaise et Portique), in Albi from April to May, 2008.

L’Ambassade is a cura­to­rial duo in con­tem­po­rary art formed by Cécilia Becanovic and Maxime Thieffine. The col­lec­tive grew out of a shared zeal for col­lecting repro­duc­tions of works using com­puters and for the log­ical neces­sity of orga­nizing of these mate­rials. On the prin­cipal of a dynamic exchange between their two “col­lec­tions”, they pre­sent in the exhi­bi­tion space or during con­fer­ences a tour of art works, art repro­duc­tions, non-artistic images, film clips, texts, etc.
This approach – his­tor­ical, ped­a­gog­ical and playful – aims to trace the latent genealo­gies between artists of dif­ferent eras and dif­ferent hori­zons. Tracing the paths between works is daring to appro­priate them in order to talk with them from a sin­gular point of view, revealing the sto­ries hidden in works, and prop­a­gating the rela­tion­ships that can occur between them.

Download the presse release