Jean-Luc Moulène
Opus + One
3 Beekman Street
Beacon, NY 12508
845 440 0100
www.diaart.org/beacon
Opening Day
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Reception: 2–4 pm
RSVP moulene [at] diaart.org
Reception is open to the public, and museum admission is free all day.
Opus + One unites two bodies of work: thirty-five objects from the ongoing series Opus (1995–present), and the monumental photographic essay La Vigie (2004–2011). It will also include a massive new sculpture, Body (2011) which was shown for the first time in the Tuileries Gardens, Paris, during FIAC in October of this year.
The exhibition title derives from the Latin word Opus, which Moulène designates as the encompassing term for his three-dimensional work. The suffix, “+ One” comes from the notation of recurrence in mathematics, yet it also reflects Moulène’s interest in the idioms of advertising and capitalist tactics, as well as his conception of the viewer as a hypothetical consumer.
Dia’s exhibition advances its legacy of commissioning projects and exhibitions from midcareer artists that encourage significant explorations in new directions within the artist’s practice. It continues in the spirit of the program presented by Dia in New York City from 1987–2004, and projects by artists including: Robert Gober (1992–93); Katarina Fritsch (1993–94); Jessica Stockholder (1995–96); Thomas Schütte (1998–99); Rosemarie Trockel (2002–04); and Pierre Huyghe (2003–04), among others. It also follows the commissioning of major new works shown at Dia:Beacon by Vera Lutter (2005–06); An-My Lê (2006-08); Tacita Dean (2008); Zoe Leonard (2008–11); and Koo Jeong A (2010–11).
The Dan Flavin Art Institute
Opus + One will be accompanied by a concurrent presentation of newly commissioned wall objects that will be shown in the Dan Flavin Art Institute’s special exhibition gallery.
Publication
A major publication designed by Marc Touitou will be made in conjunction with Opus + One. A diverse group of authors will address specific subjects in Moulène’s work through fiction, nonfiction, and art historical texts. Writers include art historians Briony Fer and Thomas McDonough, author and curator Corinne Diserens, poet Manuel Joseph, author and artist Jalal Toufic, exhibition curator Yasmil Raymond, and Dia director Philippe Vergne. Scheduled for release in summer 2012.
RELATED PROGRAMS
Perspectives from the Curator at Dia:Beacon
Saturday, March 11, 2012, 2 pm
Walk-through of Opus + One with Yasmil Raymond
Gallery Talk at Dia:Beacon
Saturday, March 31, 2012, 2 pm
Eva Respini on Jean-Luc Moulène
Artists on Artists Lecture at Dia:Chelsea
Monday, April 30, 2012, 6:30 pm
Akram Zaatari on Jean-Luc Moulène
Conversation at Dia:Beacon
Sunday, May 5, 2012, 2 pm
Jean-Luc Moulène in conversation with Yasmil Raymond
Funding
Opus + One is made possible by Dia’s Commissioning Committee: Jill and Peter Kraus, Leslie and Mac McQuown, Genny and Selmo Nissenbaum, and Liz Gerring Radke and Kirk August Radke. Additional support has come from Étant donnés: The French-American Fund for Contemporary Art (a program of FACE), Cesar Cervantes, Aaron and Barbara Levine, Lisa Schiff, and the New York State Council on the Arts, a State agency. Special thanks to Galerie Chantal Crousel, Thomas Dane Gallery, and Galerie Greta Meert. [please confirm with JLB]
Jean-Luc Moulène
Born in 1955, Jean-Luc Moulène studied aesthetics and the sciences of art at the Sorbonne University in Paris. He participated in Documenta 10 (1997), ARC / Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (1997), the Sao Paulo Biennial (2002), the Venice Biennial (2003), Taipei Biennial (2004), and most recently the First International Biennial of the Image, Luang Prabang, Laos (2007) and the Sharjah Biennial (2011). Among the institutions that have presented solo exhibitions of his work are Centre d’Art Contemporain de Genève (2003), CCA, Center for Contemporary Art, Kitakyushu (1998, 2004), Jeu de Paume, Paris (2005), Musée du Louvre, Paris (2005), DAAD Galerie, Berlin (1996), Culturgest, Lisbon (2007), and Carré d’art-Musée d’art contemporain, Nîmes (2009).
Moulène’s work has been included in group exhibitions at: Witte de With, Centre d’Art Contemporain, Rotterdam (1990, 2003), ARC / Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (1991, 2000), Ein Harod, Israel (1993), Le Magasin, Grenoble (1995), Museum in Progress, Vienna (1996), Grey Art Gallery, New York (1997), Villa Médici, Rome (1999), Yokohama Museum of Art (2000), Triennale de Milano (2001), KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2001), Ottawa Art Gallery (2001), Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2002), Musée des Beaux Arts de Nantes (2002), Le Printemps de Septembre, Toulouse (2003), De Appel, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2004), Grand Palais, Paris (2006), Landesmuseum Joanneum GmbH Kunsthaus, Graz (2007), Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2011, 2007), Kunstverein Nürnberg, Nuremberg (2010), CAC Brétigny, Brétigny-sur-Orge (2011) and MuMa, Le Havre (2011). Moulène currently lives and works in Paris.
Dia Art Foundation
A nonprofit institution founded in 1974, Dia Art Foundation is renowned for initiating, supporting, presenting, and preserving art projects. Dia:Beacon, Riggio Galleries, opened in May 2003 in Beacon, New York, on the banks of the Hudson River as the home for Dia’s distinguished collection of art from the 1960s to the present. The museum, which occupies a former Nabisco printing factory, features major installations of works by a focused group of some of the most significant artists of the last half century, as well as special exhibitions, new commissions, and diverse public and education programs. Dia:Chelsea is located on West 22nd Street in the heart of New York City’s gallery district which it helped to pioneer. Currently open for artist lectures and readings, Dia is developing plans to expand its presence in Chelsea.
Dia also maintains long-term, site-specific projects. These include Walter De Maria’s The New York Earth Room (1977) and The Broken Kilometer (1979), Max Neuhaus’s Times Square (1977), Joseph Beuys’s 7000 Eichen (7000 Oaks) (1988), and Dan Flavin’s untitled (1996), in Manhattan; The Dan Flavin Art Institute, in Bridgehampton, New York; De Maria’s Vertical Earth Kilometer (1977), in Kassel, Germany; Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (1970), in the Great Salt Lake, Utah; and De Maria’s The Lightning Field (1977), in Quemado, New Mexico. For additional public information, visit www.diaart.org.
