I went: Works from the Centre national des arts plastiques
3 October 2012–28 January 2013
Guimet Museum
6, place d’Iéna
75116 Paris
The Musée Guimet and the Centre national des arts plastiques (CNAP) 2010 partnership on behalf of artist Chen Zhen is pleased to present the exhibition I went, showcasing the French State collections and the fruitful exchange between the two public institutions.
Instigating dialogue between about ten internationally-renowned artists whose works figure in the CNAP collections, and the Musée Guimet cultural heritage collections, I went takes visitors on a meditative journey. Werner Bischof, Christian Boltanski, Jean Clareboudt, Marie-Ange Guilleminot, Hans Hartung, On Kawara, Rei Naito, Pascal Pinaud, Ian Stallard, Xavier Veilhan….visit all realms of creative work to share their visions and inspirations from Asia.
The presented artworks will re-read Asian tradition with its continual fascination for the sacred, the absolute, philosophies and journeys. These meditative itineraries take place essentially in the museum’s Japanese collections, offering three distinct orientations: gesture and calligraphy, architecture and volumes, rituals and memory.
Contemporary artworks laid out in the older collections create spaces to develop understanding from several angles. The very exploration of the exhibition is integral to the artwork; artist On Kawara embeds this in his work, just as for the decade of 1968–1979 he recorded his daily movements on maps of the cities he traversed. Marking his movements in red on the city maps attested to the artist’s physical presence, systematically and almost ritually. Japanese artist Rei Naito will continue this contemplative exploration with the artwork Pillow for the Dead: organza “pillows for the dead” illustrating our final voyage delicately, ephemerally, recalling the ancestral traditions surrounding the dead.
The museum’s prestigious fourth-floor rotunda offers a unique view of Paris; it is here that French artist Marie-Ange Guilleminot will present her work, The Salon of White Transformation. This space offers the public an exceptional encounter, with an invitation to create tsuru, or origami cranes. With this simple folding of paper, Marie Ange Guillememinot calls us to remember the children who died in the Hiroshima catastrophe.
Curators
Caroline Arhuero, Head, Musée Guimet Contemporary Art
Sébastien Faucon, Head, CNAP Fine Arts Collections
During the 2012 “Nuit Blanche” of the night of 6–7 October, artist Marie-Ange Guilleminot will present a performance projection at the Musée Guimet; this will take place in the fourth-floor rotunda, between 10pm and midnight. The museum will stay open from 6pm to 4am; last admission is at 3:30am, closing begins at 3:45am.
The Centre national des arts plastiques
In 2012, the Centre national des arts plastiques is offering several exhibitions cantered around photography, including Número Tres, de la Casa a la Fábrica, at Barcelona’s Virreina Centre de la Imatge. The Centre national des arts plastiques plays a major role in the French Ministry of Culture and Communication’s contemporary visual art policy. With both cultural and economic impact, the CNAP contributes to artistic diversity, supporting both artists and art world professionals. It acquires artworks on behalf of the French State, oversees their preservation and makes them available to the public, throughout France and worldwide. The CNAP also issues State commissions in its vocation to promote and encourage the arts. It collaborates in large-scale contemporary art events such as the Triennale, Monumenta and the Venice Biennale French Pavilion. It is especially committed to ensuring access to contemporary art for all.
The Guimet Museum
For four years, the Guimet Museum—Europe’s richest collection of Asian arts—now grants a space to contemporary art through partnerships with other institutions or galleries, creating specific events. By displaying contemporary pieces close to ancient artefacts within patrimonial exhibitions or permanent collections, the museum underlines the importance between past and present civilisations from the Extreme-Orient and Occident.
Besides this renovation, the museum has grown and extended its collections with two other exceptional sites: the Heidelbach hotel—sheltering a unique Japanese Buddhist Pantheon—and the museum of Ennery, opening a window on Japanism from the end of the 19th century.
Adapting itself to the evolution of world’s culture, the Guimet museum as a living place organizes cultural events connected to Asian cultures: film reviews, concerts, dance shows and theatre…
