Martin Beck: Dans un second temps

Unfolding as a composition, this exhibition features recent works by the Austrian artist Martin Beck who, at 49 Nord 6 Est–Frac Lorraine, presents his first major show in France.

Works on paper, photographs, sculptures, and videos… the artist chooses his medium depending on the subject matter addressed. Flowers, for example, consists of sets of photographs that document the arrangement of a so-called Dutch flower bouquet. The images reveal both the methodical work of a florist and the fragility of the material she handles. Gestures and forms are gathered in altogether 36 different constellations that do not follow a sequential order.

Temporality is an essential component of Beck’s work (born in 1963, lives in New York and Vienna, where he teaches). The research supporting the making of his works often spreads over several years before it culminates in a physical manifestation—the first element of Last Night took four years to develop—or is a part of continuous long-term effort—in recent years Beck produced one US letter-size document a day for certain durations, completing each year a new stage of working forwards, a diary-type art work.

In this exhibition, the geological time of conglomerates—sedimentary, instable rocks made up of various clasts that have remained separated despite the passage of millennia—runs alongside regular time, such as the artist’s everyday work, or ephemeral time, such as the music played at the last seminal Loft party at 99 Prince Street in New York in 1984, which brought together diverse communities, revisited in a film that follows its total 13-and-half hour duration.

Dans un second temps brings together, in the space of the exhibition, a selection of Beck’s artworks that take their cues from countercultural narratives, social dynamics, and the forces of labor. While referencing their historical impact, Beck, in the words of critic and artist Yuki Higashino, “explores how to maintain integrity, complexity, and intellectual/aesthetic strength in today’s media-social spaces. In his hands, this involves synthesizing private affections and public knowledge, analytical acuity, and deep emotivity—at once.” At Frac Lorraine, composition is used as a tool to reorganize their underlying social and spatial structures as well as their accompanying hierarchies, be they visual, economic, or community-related.

Special guided tour of the exhibition
Thursday, September 6
7pm
Regards Croisés. With Felizitas Diering, Marie Griffay and Fanny Gonella, the directors of the three Frac of the Grand Est

Special event around the exhibition
June 28–September 15, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays evening
Last Night, video of Martin Beck

Program of events

Happy composition hours
July 7, September 8 & 22, October 19
6:30pm
Cocktail composition by Ophélie Naessens, lecturer in visual arts and PO, barman

Rumeurs, murmures et autres publications
September 27
7pm
Talk by Benjamin Thorel, editor, art critic, curator & founder of After 8 books.

Listen to your eyes
September 25
7pm
Lecture by Dominique Delahoche, composer and trombone solo of the Orchestre National de Lorraine

Tribute to an imaginary folk band
October 5
7pm
Concert by Bedmakers

Faire vivre les fleurs
October 7
2:30pm
Ikebana workshop, by Fukami Seirei, master graduated from the Sogestu school

Screening and Party
October 12
7pm
Wild combination; a portrait of Arthur Russell, documentary film by Matt Wolf
9pm
Dj set - Last Night Saves the Day

More information available on our website.

The 49 Nord 6 Est - Frac Lorraine is supported by the Region Grand Est and the DRAC Grand Est at the Ministry of Culture.