13th Biennale de Lyon. La vie moderne

About

The 13th Biennale de Lyon, titled La vie moderne will bring together artists from 28 different countries who explore the contradictory character of contemporary culture in varied regions of the world. Their work addresses the ways in which multifarious legacies of the “modernˮ era continue to colour and shape our perceptions as well as the salient scenarios and issues of everyday life. With acuity and wit, a desire to engage and provoke different ways of understanding, and an adventurousness in fashioning new forms and images, their work invites the public to reflect on and re-imagine our relationships to the present moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsk55P4TiUs

There is (unavoidably) an ironic dimension to this title La vie moderne, which evokes a more optimistic moment in history characterised by a confident faith in the “newˮ, the virtues of progress, and the centrality of reason. Today, when current events continually remind us that reason has a limited role in a world propelled by passionate and irrational convictions, the phrase “la vie moderneˮ seems like something of a period piece, a relic from another age. It thus evinces a decided ambiguity: to say something is “modernˮ imbues it with an aura of uncertainty – it suggests something haunted by history as well as forward-looking. It seems to me this ambiguity captures the changing character of our current relationships to time and history, which mark a significant departure from classic modernism’s pretense of suppressing or disguising its debts to the past and so concealing contradictions within its own character. Today it seems clear that there is no escape from history; instead our only choice is to engage with and repair its legacies.

While the death of modernism (not unlike the death of painting) has been declared on many occasions over the past half century, these pre-mature announcements reflect the very modernist impulse of announcing a clean break from the past or articulating a reaction against it – a position that prevents us from seeing and understanding the nature of the present situation and its continuing connections to history. In contrast to this approach, the artists in the 13th Biennale de Lyon embrace a modernism that is mixed, transitional, bricolaged, and punctured by history. Working with varied means and articulating fluid and playful positions and perspectives, their work explores notions of cultural overlap and simultaneity that depart from linear notions of history. Throughout the Biennale, visitors will encounter artworks that address the mixed legacies of the modern era that we continue to grapple with today: the growth of societies dominated by consumption and corporate cultural production; the ubiquity of packaging and pollution; issues of post-colonialism, immigration and national identity; the endangered project of economic equality; and the consequences of technological acceleration and proliferation, including how our ever-expanding network of electronic communications is restructuring our mental maps of the world, our relationships with images and objects, ideas of work and leisure, and our relations with one another and with ourselves.

In terms of the curatorial selection, the focus is on recent work that is timely and pointed, and that represents a range of different generations. As a curator, I have always taken very seriously Marcel Duchamp’s assertion that the viewer is responsible for half the content of any work of art, and my selection for the Biennale reflects my interest in artists whose approach also highlights this understanding. It is crucial for me that visitors to the Biennale experience it as a jumping off point for their own conversations and thoughts, rather than as a readymade statement.

Over 60% of the participating artists are creating new work for the Biennale. While a biennale is by definition an exhibition with an international scope, I believe it should also have a distinct regional accent – that it should reflect the particular cultural and social nuances that characterise the current moment in the city and nation where it is staged. Consequently “la vie moderneˮ features a larger-than-usual representation of French artists, spanning a profoundly diverse range of aesthetic approaches. Several artists in the show will also present new works that extrapolate from social and cultural histories specific to Lyon, including Ahmet Öǧüt and Fabien Giraud & Raphael Siboni, while Jeremy Deller and Marinella Senatore, working as a team, will present works made in collaboration with varied groups of  Lyon residents.

Other artists look at recent concerns that have been a critical focus in French society, but that affect many other regions of the world as well. Kader Attia will be producing a new video installation dealing with ethno-psychology that engages questions raised in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo tragedy. Andra Ursuta’s figurative sculpture Commerce Exterieur Mondial Sentimental (2012), inspired by a photograph of a Romanian Gypsy awaiting deportation from France, evokes the problematic politics of immigration. Yuan Goang-Ming’s video projection Landscape of Energy (2014), made in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, questions modes of energy production and consumption. A new installation by Julien Previeux, meanwhile, will explore our shifting moral compass by examining examples of cheating in sport. Andreas Lolis’s Monument to the Greek Crisis (2015), a trompe l’oeil carved marble sculpture that resembles an improvised habitat made of cast-off cardboard and polystyrene packaging, bears witness to the precariousness of the global economy, while a major new installation by Otobong Nkanga conjures the changing relations of subjective and collective experience in contemporary life.

In addition, the Biennale will include a “salle des amateursˮ, featuring works by amateur cultural producers. One of most significant cultural developments that has emerged thanks to the World Wide Web is the global distribution of cultural production by amateur practitioners – people who may or may not consider themselves “artistsˮ but who nonetheless create types of visual culture that are engaging and thought-provoking and that deserve to be seen alongside contemporary art.

In conclusion, the 13th Biennale de Lyon aims to be a forum where visitors can engage in reflecting and questioning, re-imagining and renewing our concepts of la vie moderne, inspired by works by artists with a capacity for juggling multiple viewpoints and producing perspectives that, in a time of global homogenisation, are defined by difference, rather than the predictable frameworks of the “necessaryˮ.
At a historical juncture when accelerating change coexists in many parts of the world with regressions to social, economic and cultural dynamics that characterised earlier eras, the work in the Biennale engages us in modes of seeing and thinking that help us to question the “new normalˮ and perhaps to rebuild concepts of  that can truly address the paradoxical landscape of our present day.

Exhibition venues: 

La Sucrière
Les Docks
47–49 quai Rambaud
69002 Lyon

Lyon Museum of Contemporary Art (macLYON)
Cité Internationale
81 quai Charles de Gaulle
69006 Lyon

Musée des Confluences NEW
86 quai Perrache
69002 Lyon
In 2015, as part of the Biennale de Lyon, the museum will host an artwork by Yuan Goang-Ming (room15).