Jannis Kounellis: “I come with empty hands as an old painter.“

“I come with empty hands as an old painter." It is with these words that Jannis Kounellis had answered, a few months ago, to the invitation of Chiara Parisi, Director of Cultural Programs at Monnaie de Paris, who wanted to start 2016 with one of the “sacred monsters” of contemporary art.

Kounellis begins with the heart of the last craftsman factory in Paris—one of the last foundries still active, an institution that combines every day the working world and the one of creation—and the importance of energy in order to compose a real, dramatic sculpture using the whole thousand square meters of the 18th century salons by the Seine. Eminently present, concrete, irreducible, Kounellis’ new exhibition strikes the visitors with a direct experience, without any intermediary.

The artist involves the visitor and raises the question of the process of an artwork’s fabrication. It is in the doing, in the work of the workshops, in the intuition of forms, in the modeling, that the project of the artist emerges. The materials that Kounellis uses in his displays are political and historical messages as much as they are also about time and memory.

On the occasion of Jannis Kounellis’ exhibition, a book is published by Monnaie de Paris with Hatje Cantz, a special edition is conceived by the artist and a token is created in the engraving workshops of Monnaie de Paris.

In the context of the exhibition, an exceptional Public Program is conceived in collaboration with RAM radioartemobile and with the complicity of Etel Adnan around poetic and musical meetings and events:

"The poets talk to each other" on March 17 at 7pm with Etel Adnan and Hanna Shygulla, Eugénie Paultre and Vincent Broqua, Sabine Macher and Stéphane Bouquet.

"Five Senses for One Death" on April 28 at 7pm with Etel Adnan and Gavin Bryars.

Live broadcast on the website of RAM radioartemobile and published on the website of Monnaie de Paris, these meetings and events are associated with a unique selection of radio archives. Thanks to the sound devices conceived by Didier Faustino, these archives remain in free access for the visitors of the exhibition via his helmet-cocoons placed on a telescopic arm where everyone can enjoy these recordings at their own pace, "poetic fragments, fragmented experimentation, experiments, all to share, to convey to the community.”

Press contact:
Communication Director: Guillaume Robic
T + 33 (0)1 40 46 58 18 / guillaume.robic [​at​] monnaiedeparis.fr

Claudine Colin Communication: Avril Boisneault
T + 33 (0)1 42 72 60 01 / avril [​at​] claudinecolin.com