Take Me (I'm yours)

The French Academy in Rome - Villa Medici is pleased to present Take Me (I’m yours), from June 1 until the works have run out, a collective, interactive exhibition which brings together works from Villa Medici’s 15 residents alongside international artists, making up a total of 90 artists.

Actively encouraged by the director Muriel Mayette-Holtz, under the curatorship of Christian Boltanski, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Chiara Parisi, Take Me (I’m yours) is the largest exhibition of contemporary art ever shown at Villa Medici. 

Part of the annual exhibition cycle L ORO, designed as a laboratory for the artists and researchers in residence at the French Academy in Rome, Take Me (I’m yours) creates an interactive space for visitors and artists which has a distinctive open form with constant evolution: a space within which the public is allowed to adopt behaviours generally forbidden in museums—like touching, testing, tasting, interacting with the exhibited work—thus playing a role in their dissemination, transformation and rebirth.

International artists of different generations and locations take part: aaajiao, Etel Adnan, Giulia Andreani, Juan Arroyo, Micol Assaël, Artur Barrio, Gianfranco Baruchello, Eric Baudelaire, Boris Bergmann, Christian Boltanski, Mohamed Bourouissa, Pedro Victor Brandão, Paulo Bruscky, James Lee Byars, Luis Camnitzer, Cao Fei, Maurizio Cattelan, Liliana Cavani, Lise Charles & Aurélien Dumont, Ian Cheng & Rachel Rose, Claire Fontaine, Alvin Curran (& Maxime Guitton), Patrizio Di Massimo, David Douard, Maria Eichhorn, Simone Fattal, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Andrea Fraser, Charles Gaines, Martino Gamper, Mario García Torres, Alberto Garutti, Cyril Gerbron, Jef Geys, Gilbert & George, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Joseph Grigely, Ho Rui An, Carsten Höller, David Horvitz, Fabrice Hyber, Invernomuto, Alex Israel, Alison Knowles, Koo Jeong A, Armin Linke, Franck Krawczyk, Ugo La Pietra, Fernanda Laguna, Claire Lavabre, Marc Leschelier, Felice Levini, Jorgi Macchi, Angelika Markul, Annette Messager, Bruce Nauman, Rivane Neuenschwander, Otobong Nkanga, Yoko Ono, Luigi Ontani, Philippe Parreno, Diego Perrone, Cesare Pietroiusti, point d’ironie, Emilio Prini, Faith Ringgold, Roque Rivas, Martha Rosler, Anri Sala, Tomás Saraceno, Moussa Sarr, Tino Sehgal, Stéphanie Solinas, Daniel Spoerri, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Franco Vaccari, Francesco Vezzoli, Danh Vo, Lawrence Weiner, Franz West and Odysseas Yannikouris & Alessandra Monarca.

The exhibition at Villa Medici is put together like a worksite, following the Renaissance tradition where all the disciplines were mixed together in the construction of the same project. A real urban industry in which artists, architects, designers, musicians and writers participate and work together for many days.

Conceived in 1995 by Christian Boltanski and Hans Ulrich Obrist for the Serpentine Gallery in London, Take Me (I’m yours) has seen several re-orchestrations over the world, enriching and developing itself with each new curatorship, display, rules and bringing together a growing number of artists, each time invited to challenge the format. Through all these editions in Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen, The Jewish Museum in New York in 2016 and in BIENALSUR (Biennial of Contemporary Art of South America) in Buenos Aires and Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan in 2017, more than an exhibition, Take Me (I’m yours) has become an artwork in itself.

During the opening on Thursday, May 31, from 5:30pm in the Grand Salon of the Villa Medici, a special talk will take place, orchestrated by Hans Ulrich Obrist with artists, about the different reincarnations of the exhibition, a moment of exchange and questioning around the challenges of the works displayed, and more generally on the format of the exhibition over the years.

Accompanying the exhibition, a trilingual French/Italian/English edition, conceived as a box including a postcard of each project, will be published by the French Academy in Rome - Villa Medici.

Press office, Académie de France à Rome – Villa Medici | Italy
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Press Office, Académie de France à Rome – Villa Medici | France
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