Jérôme Sans . Bridging the Gap - Marcel Duchamp Prize

Bridging the Gap - Marcel Duchamp Prize
Tsinghua University Art Museum, Beijing

Exhibitions Curator

Group Show with a selection of artists from the Prize Marcel Duchamp :
Kader Attia, Davide Balula, Neïl Beloufa, Mircea Cantor, Latifa Echakhch, Leandro Erlich, Laurent Grasso, Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, Barthélémy Toguo, Wang Du

Tsinghua University Art Museum, Beijing, China
With the support of French Embassy in China and the French Institute
14.05 — 17.06.18

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Bridging the Gap presents the works of ten artists of the Marcel Duchamp Prize: a sample taken from the current dynamism of a plural creation, which resolutely transcends the categorizations in terms of contemporary art today. The Great Divide evokes this dichotomy between East and West, which is only a relative and tenuous gap in the era of global communication. The exhibition thematizes this confrontation of cultures, but above all the idea that art travels, is exported and migrates across continents. It never ceases to be confronted with the plurality of the views it meets. Like a collection of short stories, these ten works each take place at the heart of ten "climates". These heterogeneous and singular artistic trajectories weave the metaphor of a fragmented world and thematize through the constant allusion to the notion of repair, the urgency of new forms of reflection and commitment. Successively mixing intimist and introspective atmospheres with more explosive and abundant ones, Le Grand Écart summons works that are as many fragments of a current state of the world.

Kader Attia examines marginality, uprootedness and otherness from an anthropological perspective, taking us on a journey that connects the intimate to the universal, the microcosm in tune with the Universe caught in an infinite process of repair. The quest for universal harmony also permeates Mircea Cantor's Double Rainbow, a rainbow, symbolizing peace, traced with barbed wire patterns by the artist with his fingerprints. These paradoxical tensions between celestial harmony and our contemporary ills are transformed in the following rooms into an exploration of the depths of the underworld. Buried in the depths, Davide Balula's paintings are marked by the imprint of earth or burnt wood that sign the passage of time. The clay fragments of Tkaf by Latifa Echackhch transport us on the traces of a wandering in Morocco to discover a sanctuary. On the threshold of documentary and fiction, the Lebanese duo Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige bring out a poetic of the ruin in installations marked by wars and societal upheavals. Subtle and discreet, their works are presented as immediate archives nourished by the narratives of stories kept secret from the dominant history. Neil Beloufa's cosmopolitan work continues this chaotic and fragmented investigation into the history and representations of power in the present day. These questions about the contemporary world contaminate the medical metaphor present in Wang Du's work, which takes a critical look at the incessant flow of information symptomatic of the current media system and consumer society. An allusion to medicine that becomes more literal in Leandro Erlich's Cabinet of the Psychoanalyst, which shifts us into a spectral space-time, reflected on the glass. The tangible boundaries between reality and fiction, dream and pretense are at the heart of Laurent Grasso's Studies into the Past. Multiplying narratives, hallucinatory apparitions and anachronisms, they question our relationship to history, to doubt and uncertainty. Barthélémy Toguo's dreamlike watercolors probe our emotions and themes as universal as life, death, suffering and happiness.

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Jérôme Sans - Barthelemy Toguo_Bridging the Gap, Beijing, ADIAF, 2018, Jérôme Sans

Barthélémy Toguo, What’s your name? Series, 2004-2005. Techniques mixtes sur papier, 208 x 130 cm (chaque) ; Crazy City, 2017. 10 sculptures en bois de tilleul, tapis africains. Dimensions variables. Courtesy Bandjoun Station, Cameroon & Galerie Lelong, Paris
Le Grand Ecart / Bridging the gap, Le Prix Marcel Duchamp en Chine, Tsinghua University Art Museum, Beijing, 2018

Jérôme Sans - Davide Balula__Bridging the Gap, Beijing, ADIAF, 2018, Jérôme Sans

Davide Balula, Buried Painting Series, 2014-2015. Particules de poussière sur toile, 95 x 170 cm ; 130 x 95 cm. Courtesy galerie frank elbaz ; Burnt Painting, Imprint of the Burnt Painting (Burnt in the Middle with You), 2016. Bois calcine, poussière de bois calcine sur toile, 82 x 210 cm (chaque panneau). Le Grand Ecart / Bridging the gap, Le Prix Marcel Duchamp en Chine, Tsinghua University Art Museum, Beijing, 2018

Jérôme Sans - Kader Attia__Bridging the Gap, Beijing, ADIAF, 2018, Jérôme Sans

Kader Attia, Ring Theory, 2015. Miroirs, fer, fils métalliques. 150 x 500 x 500 cm. Courtesy GALLERIA CONTINUA, San Gimignano / Beijing / Les Moulins / Habana. Le Grand Ecart / Bridging the gap, Le Prix Marcel Duchamp en Chine, Tsinghua University Art Museum, Beijing, 2018

Jérôme Sans - Latifa Echakhch__Bridging the Gap, Beijing, ADIAF, 2018, Jérôme Sans

Latifa Echakhch, Tkaf, 2011. Installation in situ : briques et pigment. Dimensions variables. Courtesy the artist and kamel mennour, Paris
Le Grand Ecart / Bridging the gap, Le Prix Marcel Duchamp en Chine, Tsinghua University Art Museum, Beijing, 2018

Jérôme Sans - Laurent Grasso 1__Bridging the Gap, Beijing, ADIAF, 2018, Jérôme Sans

Laurent Grasso, Untitled, 2017. Néon, 78 x 150 x 6 cm. Courtesy the artist; The Owl of Minerva, 2017. Onyx vert, métal, LED, 40 x 37 x 6,5 cm. Courtesy the artist and Edouard Malingue Gallery; Studies into the Past. Huile sur bois. 103,5 x 112,5 cm. Courtesy the artist ; Retroprojection, 2018. Sérigraphie à l’encre argentée sur papier, montée sur aluminium, encadrée, 155 x 155 cm. Courtesy the artist
Le Grand Ecart / Bridging the gap, Le Prix Marcel Duchamp en Chine, Tsinghua University Art Museum, Beijing, 2018

Jérôme Sans - Laurent Grasso 2__Bridging the Gap, Beijing, ADIAF, 2018, Jérôme Sans

Laurent Grasso, Satellite, 2006, 35 mm film, 9 min 52 sec, en boucle; Untitled, 2018, Aluminium, 100 x 30 x 20 cm, Courtesy the artist.
Le Grand Ecart / Bridging the gap, Le Prix Marcel Duchamp en Chine, Tsinghua University Art Museum, Beijing, 2018

Jérôme Sans - Leandro Erlich__Bridging the Gap, Beijing, ADIAF, 2018, Jérôme Sans

Leandro Erlich, Le cabinet du psychanalyste, 2006. Techniques mixtes. Dimensions variables. Courtesy GALLERIA CONTINUA, San Gimignano / Beijing / Les Moulins / Habana. Le Grand Ecart / Bridging the gap, Le Prix Marcel Duchamp en Chine, Tsinghua University Art Museum, Beijing, 2018

Jérôme Sans - Mircea Cantor__Bridging the Gap, Beijing, ADIAF, 2018, Jérôme Sans

Mircea Cantor, Double Rainbow, 2018. Empreintes digitales de l’artiste, encres colorées. Dimensions variables. Courtesy of the artist. Le Grand Ecart / Bridging the gap, Le Prix Marcel Duchamp en Chine, Tsinghua University Art Museum, Beijing, 2018

Jérôme Sans - Neil Beloufa__Bridging the Gap, Beijing, ADIAF, 2018, Jérôme Sans

Neil Beloufa, Sustainable Finger, 2017. Aluminium, carton, résine. 299 x 190 x 12 cm ; 2010-A, 2017. Résine teintée, emballage en carton monté sur bois peint, aluminium, châssis, port USB, télécommande, néon, écran de télévision (Sans titre, 2010, 14’56”), 160 x 130 x 15 cm ; 2017-C, 2017. Résine teintée, emballage en carton monté sur bois peint, aluminium, châssis, prise électrique, câbles, port USB, 160 x 130 x 15 cm ; Studio Montreuil View, 2017. Acier, résine epoxy, 150 x 150 x 19,5 cm. Courtesy Neïl Beloufa and Balice Hertling, Paris
Le Grand Ecart / Bridging the gap, Le Prix Marcel Duchamp en Chine, Tsinghua University Art Museum, Beijing, 2018

Jérôme Sans - Wang Du__Bridging the Gap, Beijing, ADIAF, 2018, Jérôme Sans

Wang Du, Médecine interne, 2016. Résine, fibre de verre. 268 x 172 x 120 cm ; Urologie, 2016, Cuivre, bois, 250 x 340 x 277 cm. Courtesy Galerie Laurent Godin, Paris. Le Grand Ecart / Bridging the gap, Le Prix Marcel Duchamp en Chine, Tsinghua University Art Museum, Beijing, 2018