January 15–October 29, 2022
Horizones (Possible Title): the 23rd Pernod-Ricard Foundation prize
With Hélène Bertin, Timothée Calame, Fabiana Ex-Souza, Eva Nielsen, Benoît Piéron, Elsa Werth and Jean-Michel Sanejouand.
Curated by Clément Dirié.
Horizones (Logbook), first entry
“I begin this diary as I head to see Colette, Claire, Inès and Paul to launch the 23rd Pernod-Ricard Foundation Prize. I need to write a statement of intent (here it is!) and announce the mentorship program.
The week of the 25th of October, I met Eva, Benoît, Fabiana, Hélène, Elsa and Timothée to tell them that I wished that they participate in the prize. It had been several months since their names had gained a foothold on me, very quickly, with pleasure, a pleasure tenfold increased by the fact that I was to keep this list to myself, recomposed at will, out of sight and of interested or informed counsel. I believe that this discretion has been well maintained. It was important for me to suggest that they all participate the same week, within the same motion, to explain to each of them why I wanted to exhibit them, why their practices appealed to me, mobilised me, made me think, all at once, how they had accompanied me since I had discovered them. I wanted to announce this to them ‘in real life,’ as they say, to seal the start of a shared adventure even though my ‘history’ with each of them is very different, spanning between 13 years and mere weeks.
Tuesday noon, Rue de L’Ourque: Eva, whom I have known since she studied at the Beaux-Arts in Paris, receives me at her studio to discover her latest paintings and much more. Wednesday morning, Bastille: Benoît, surrounded by the sleeping figures of Georges Jeanclos, tells me about the plants he has just exhibited at the FIAC (International Contemporary Art Fair) and is about to return to their owners. Wednesday noon, at a terrasse near the Canal Saint-Martin: Fabiana takes my hand to accept my proposal as the sun makes an appearance at our table at the terrasse. Wednesday evening, Rue Daguerre: Hélène, to whom I had made a telephonic visit to at her exhibition at CRAC Montbéliard in May, offers me very good wine for our first meeting. Thursday morning, Odéon: Elsa, we resume previous conversations and begin to imagine together what will perhaps be one of the first works of the exhibition. Friday morning, inter-regional zoom meeting: Timothée, whom I met for the first time in Basel the previous month, sets a date for me to visit his studio in Marseille in February. And there is Jean-Michel, whom I could no longer visit in Maine-et-Loire since his passing on the 18th of March, but whose fierce freedom and constant desire for renewal has encouraged me to integrate him into this exhibition, as a possible horizon of the benefits of a controlled eclecticism.
Nothing (just yet) connects these six artists + one. We have almost a year of work, discussions, decisions, production and doubts left in order to put together an exhibition. Along the way, there will be new encounters, events, a cine-club… As for the title Horizones, whether provisional or definitive, it is a portmanteau and a new term, one that still needs a practical definition. I have the intuition that it is the perfect metaphor to describe the organic formation of a contemporary artistic landscape produced by the meeting of singular aesthetic worlds.” —Clément Dirié, November 26, 2021
Artist biographies
Hélène Bertin: born in the Luberon in 1989, lives in Cucuron.
Timothée Calame: born in Genève in 1991, lives in Marseille.
Fabiana Ex-Souza: née Fabiana De Souza in Belo Horizonte in 1980, lives in Paris.
Eva Nielsen: born in 1983 in Les Lilas, lives in Paris.
Benoît Piéron: born in Ivry-sur-Seine in Paris.
Jean-Michel Sanejouand: born in Lyon in 1934, died in Baugé-en-Anjou in 2021.
Elsa Werth: born in Paris in 1985, lives in Paris.
Curator biography
Clément Dirié is an art historian, journalist, art critic (member of the AICA), independent curator (member of the association cea/associated curators since 2009), and publisher specializing in contemporary art. He was born in 1981.
Companionship agenda
From January 2022, we will regularly encounter the nominated artists on this occasion of customised “rendez-vous,” until they are gathered again in September for the exhibition of the 23rd Pernod Ricard Foundation Prize.
January 15, 2022: Horizones (musterclass)
Beginning of the companionship and full day “musterclass” (from English “to muster”) to present the practice of the six artists of the 23rd Pernod-Ricard Foundation Prize.
February–June 2022
Events and evenings conceived by the artists, including an evening around Jean-Michel Sanejouand to whom a “musterclass” is not devoted.
End of June 2022: Horizones (cine-club)
Cine-club programmed by the artists on the forecourt of the Pernod-Ricard Foundation.
September 5–October 29, 2022: Horizones (exhibition)
Exhibition
Friday of the FIAC (International Contemporary Art Fair), October 2022
Presentation of the 23rd Pernod-Ricard Foundation Prize
