ni trompette Sans tambour

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Press
kit
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saison
2012/2013
le lieu unique
scène nationale
de Nantes
Sans
tambour,
ni trompette
30th may
11th august
2013
around Roland Topor
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Press
release
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Sans tambour, ni trompette
Michael Dans, Erik Dietman, Benjamin Monti, Mrzyk & Moriceau,
Daniel Nadaud, Roland Topor and Didier Trenet.
30th may – 11th august 2013
Press :
Christelle Masure / christelle.masure@lelieuunique.com / t. +33 2 51 82 15 47
Aurélie Denis / aurelie.denis@lelieuunique.com / t. +33 2 51 82 15 03
Le lieu unique is pleased to present the group exhibition, Sans tambour ni trompette (“Without
drum or trumpet”) from 30 May to 11 August 2013.
As an admirer of Roland Topor’s protean
body of work, the exhibition curator and Director of the art centre, Bertrand Godot has
organized a collective project at le lieu unique, bringing together seven artists around the great
figurehead, who is both the guest of honour and the eighth artist.
Being sensitive to all things nonsensical, a figure of excess and pleasure, subversive and
provocateur, Topor makes fun of both mankind and himself. The invited artists peep behind
the scenes, explore the backstage and shortcomings of the human race and eroticism and, like
Roland Topor, question these very same notions.
Sans tambour ni trompette presents over 200
works in the courtyard of le lieu unique that were either created for the exhibition or already
exist. Every last one of them is a reason to (re)discover the artistic visions of Michael Dans, Erik
Dietman, Benjamin Monti, Mrzyk & Moriceau, Daniel Nadaud, and Didier Trenet.
In the wake of Topor, these contemporary artists continue to explore the cracks, the margins,
whatever exists (or doesn’t) “on the other side of the page.”
Artists
Michael Dans
Solo exhibitions / selection
2012 La Maison Dieu When You Came Back Home, B9, St Luc Liège, Liège, Belgium
2010 Dessins, Espace Uhoda, Liège, Belgium
2009 Superapocalyptisticexpialidocious, aliceday, Brussels, Belgium
2006 On casse tous notre pipe, Chapelle du Genêteil, Château-Gontier
Since his first “formulations” in the early 1990s, Michael Dans’s work has continued
to escape any form of indoctrination, be it formal, aesthetic, conceptual or other. He
deliberately chooses extremely different media (Indian ink, installations, photographs),
often in reaction to the space where he is invited to present his work. Certain
fundamental traits nevertheless appear to emerge throughout his exhibitions: humour
that is both cynical and critical, an art of the contradiction and thumbing one’s nose
at the world, and a taste for associating ideas and displacements that produce new
meanings.
Michael Dans, Serial Killer
Erik Dietman
Born in 1937, in Sweden. Died in 2002.
Solo exhibitions / selection
2011 Erik Dietman, Monomental, Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul
2010 Erik Dietman : dessins sans regarder, Mam, Saint-Étienne
2001 Éloge de l’envie, MAMAC, Nice
2000 Un nez dans le verre, un verre dans le nez, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nancy
Erik Dietman, Le Général
Although close to Fluxus and Nouveau Réalisme, Erik Dietman always stayed on
the fringes of any art movement. Playing with language and adding humour to the
creative mix led to his first pieces in the 1960s, which he called objets pansés or pensés
(“thought”, or “bandaged objects”).
Inspired by concrete poetry (his encounter in 1953 with Oyvind Falhström, whose
manifesto on concrete poetry would be seminal), he then explored words and images
through his conceptual works. It is only in the 1980s that he returned to sculpture, while
continuing to draw. Bronze, marble, iron, and ceramic became his materials of choice.
However, he never stopped drawing and continued this practice to the end of his career,
often in large format. Above all else, his art has established itself as one of the most
original and personal contributions to contemporary sculpture.
Benjamin Monti
Born in 1983, in Liège. Lives and draws wherever he goes.
Solo exhibitions / selection
2013 Benjamin Monti, Galerie Wittert, ULG, Liège, Belgium
2012 Benjamin Monti, Espace Bis, Centre Culturel de Tournai
2010 Perspecta, Galerie Nadja Vilenne “Hors les murs”, Brussels, Belgium
2009 Benjamin Monti, Galerie Nadja Vilenne, Liège, Belgium
Benjamin Monti, Sans titre
Benjamin Monti is an amazing collector of images and printed curiosities, a recycler of
an iconographic corpus which he hybridizes, recomposes and revivifies between copies
and originals, at the junction where text, graphic art, and visual art meet. Very active in
the world of fanzines, he also draws using Indian ink or pencil to create what he calls
“suspended instants.”
For the past ten years, he has endlessly experimented, attempting new dialogues
between drawing and text, especially with graphic novels and diaries. In 2012, he
launched a new periodical fanzine called Obsolescence programmée (“programmed
obsolescence”). He has already participated in roughly one hundred publications,
essentially in “alternative” spheres, for fanzines or tiny publishers.
Mrzyk & Moriceau
Team consisting of Petra Mrzyk, born in 1973, in Nuremberg, and Jean-François Moriceau
born in 1974, in Saint-Nazaire. They live and work in Chatillon-sur-Indre.
Solo exhibitions / selection
2012 Poppies Are Also Flowers 1,2,3,4/4, Air de Paris, Paris
2011 The Man With the Golden Gun, Ratio 3, San Francisco, USA
2008 You Only Live Twice, Air de Paris, Paris; Casino Royale, Ritter/Zamet Gallery,
London, UK; The Living Daylights, AMT Gallery, Milan, Italy
Since meeting at the École des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, these two artists, best known for
their black ink drawings, have offered both an offbeat perspective onto the world and on
the art of drawing itself. Therapeutic and stupid, childish, X-rated, collectible, reproducible
ad infinitum, original, and ephemeral… Petra Mrzyk and Jean-François Moriceau’s
drawings take their inspiration from popular imagery and avant-garde comic books. They
portray our image-addled society and deform reality through the filter of disturbing
fantasy, while transposing it into an exuberant and chaotic universe. Their characters, just
as much as the context in which they appear, are subject to twisting and deformation.
Mrzyk et Moriceau, Sans titre
Daniel Nadaud
Born in 1942, in Paris. Lives and works in Pré Saint-Gervais & Olivet.
Solo exhibitions / selection
2011 Dessins & imprimés, Galerie de l’artothèque, Vitré
2009 Délicat désastre, Galerie Benoît Lecarpentier, Paris
2008 Le grand massacre, Galerie Remarque, Trans en Provence
2007 Tintinnabuler, Galerie le Salon d’Art, Brussels, Belgium; Partition fantôme, Château
d’Olonne, Abbaye Saint-Jean de l’Orbestier
Daniel Nadaud’s artistic universe takes its inspirations from multiple sources. History,
fragments of his childhood, and farm equipment make up the backbone of his projects.
Although his work was initially centred on using gouache, it became increasingly
varied over time, ranging from artist’s books to installations. He has always seen human
labour through the mediation of the tools that define it. His notebooks accompany his
adventures and relate his moods, projects, curiosities and his intentions. These diaries are
traces of his many inner travels.
Daniel Nadaud, Rêve
Roland Topor
Born in 1938, died in 1997.
Roland Topor was a genius of an exquisitely dark brand of humour. He developed his
art through whatever medium he could get his hands on. In turns an illustrator, painter,
writer, stage director, actor, decorator, songwriter, or even filmmaker, he left a body of
work that is abundantly rich, and singular in our history.
After leaving the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris in 1964, he first published his drawings
in the avant-garde review “Bizarre,” and later in the famed satirical magazine “HaraKiri.” In 1962, he founded the art movement, Panique, with Alexandro Jodorowski
Alejandro Jodorowsky and Fernando Arrabal. He wrote the novels The Tenant, Les
masochistes, Mémoires d’un vieux con, directed the television shows, Palace and
Téléchat, and created the animated film Fantastic Planet alongside René Laloux. The
list is never-ending for this disciple of good living and well-being. His laughter and
work will remain in our collective memory, along with his artistic world, which is full of
amusement, and where every subject from sexuality to death were grist for his mill.
Roland Topor, sans titre (Une des Neuf
Grâces)
Didier Trenet
Born in 1965, in Beaune, France. Lives and works in Trambly.
Solo exhibitions / selection
2012 Saône-et-Gloire, Esox Lucius, La Clayette Championne de Descente, Galerie
Claudine Papillon, Paris
2009 Intempestives, Galerie Claudine Papillon, Paris
2007 Bon sang, Chapelle de Vâtre, Jullié
2006 Panthéon des astres, Abbatiale de Saint Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu and FRAC des
Pays de la Loire, Carquefou; Victoire!, Iconoscope, Montpellier
2005 Didier Trenet, Galerie Aline Vidal, Paris
Didier Trenet, YES
With a body of work made up of drawings, texts, and sculptures, Didier Trenet’s art
is marked by singular and timeless craftsmanship. He makes light of memory with
rigour and discipline. His art is fully part of the world, lodged in the folds of reality that
he patiently picks like petals from a flower. His choices also affirm his independence,
as with his declared taste for the 18th century arts, steeped as they were in libertine
philosophy. With references to classical and academic models (his work conjures
up Fragonard, Hubert Robert or Watteau), his drawing transgressively and playfully
marries the art of sketching with calligraphy. Didier Trenet’s work is based on three
arts: writing, drawing and installation, resulting in an œuvre as complete as it is
diverse.
This exhibition is presented as part of Nantes’ literary festival, Atlantide (31 May - 2 June 2013).
Echoing this exhibition, Michael Dans will take over one of the Galeries Lafayette (Nantes branch) shop windows
from 3 to 31 July as part of the Vitrines de l’Art event.
Informations pratiques :
le lieu unique, quai Ferdinand-Favre, Nantes / www.lelieuunique.com
hours : tuesday-saturday : 1pm-7pm // sunday 3pm-7pm
free entrance
Atlantide