A CONTRE-CORPS /
COUNTERING THE BODY
A WORK OF DEVOURING
ARTISTS / LYGIA CLARK, ANNA MARIA MAIOLINO, CILDO MEIRELES AND
MATHIEU K. ABONNENC
16 May – 20 September 09
1bis rue des Trinitaires, F-57000 Metz
info [at] fraclorraine.org
“Antropofagia”, as defined by the Brazilian poet Oswald de Andrade’s Manifesto antropófago (1928), provides another possible guiding thread through this exhibition physically constructed around the work of C. Meireles. Following O. de Andrade’s definition of the act of devouring as a form of apprenticeship and an act of appropriating the world, La Bruja – version I (1979-81), constructed of thousands of kilometers of cotton string, literally appropriates Frac Lorraine’s gallery space, spilling into the street and thus disgorging the private space out into public space. The historical works of L. Clark and A. M. Maiolino, scattered along the path drawn/unrolled on the ground, weave new meaningful sensory and formal connections between language and saliva.
Photographs of the collective performances Canibalismo and Baba Antropofágica (1973), made by L. Clark in Paris with the help of students at the Sorbonne, bear witness to her exploration of the human psyche through the intermediary of sensorial experimentation countering the body which release the life energy present in all things. Another important figure of that period, A. M. Maiolino, is present here with her video In-Out Antropofagia (1973), a succession of tight shots of famished mouths (of freedom, of communication, of demand): transitional spaces, places of exchange between the inside and the outside, of discharge and absorption. Invited to exhibit at Frac Lorraine, Mathieu K. Abonnenc will present images of the Amazon forest which swells with the uncanny.
Vertiginous pauses at the “edge of the world” (Luc Jeand’Heur, 2006), the works presented in À Contre-Corps / Countering the Body invite the viewer to a polarizing experience.
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ACCESS /
49 NORD 6 EST – Frac Lorraine, 1bis rue des Trinitaires, Metz, France
Admission free.
Open Wednesday to Sunday from 12-7pm
Free guided visits on Wednesdays from 4-5pm and Sundays from 5-6pm.
Free guided visits for children: Sundays from 2.30-4.30pm (visit+workshop)
Group visits on request Tel.: 00 33(0)3 87 74 55 00
Loans from : Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris ; The World of Lygia Clark Cultural Association, Rio de Janeiro, Brésil
The presentation of Cildo Meireles’s work at Frac Lorraine was made possible thanks to the generous support of Decoster Caulliez SAS (La Gorgue, France).
This work has been produced in cooperation with the Association de préfiguration du Centre Pompidou-Metz as part of the art program Constellation (May 15 – October 4, 2009).
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The Fonds régional d’art contemporain de Lorraine, a member of « Platform » network, enjoys financial backing from the Lorraine Regional Council and the Lorraine Region Cultural Affairs Department (DRAC) at the Ministry of Culture and Communication.
