With works by Jean-Michel Alberola, Maria Thereza Alves, Halida Boughriet, Thierry Cauwet, Stephen Dean, Claude Dityvon, Charles Fréger, Amine Habki, Tracey Moffatt, Société Réaliste.
From the collections of Frac Île-de-France, Contemporary Art Fund – Paris Collections, MAC VAL and Seine-Saint-Denis Departmental Collection of Contemporary Art.
Curators: Rémi Enguehard and Héloïse Joannis
With two groups of students.
During a sporting event, the spectacle takes place both on the pitch and in the stands. Shouts, cheers, invectives, whistles and chants punctuate the athletes’ performances. Expressing the intensity of the effort, the rage to win, the euphoria or collective disappointment, these sounds bear witness to what is happening during a match, a fight or a race. Sound waves transmit an energy that flows from the athlete to the stadium and vice versa. Bodies tense up and change state, moving from rest to action. The individual body becomes part of the collective.
It’s a show where everyone is on show. You have to show your strength, your solidarity, your patriotism. And if the performance fails? Aren’t flaws, weaknesses and failures also part of the show? If victory were obvious, would sport be as captivating?
It’s a show where everyone is performing. You have to show your strength, your solidarity, your patriotism. But what if the performance fails? Aren’t flaws, weaknesses and failures also part of the show? If victory were obvious, would sport be as captivating?
The artists featured in the exhibition are interested in the representations of bodies, the instincts that link us to animals, the social phenomena that surround sport, and the stories that are told through song. Taking as its starting point the continuum of sound that accompanies sporting events, the exhibition highlights the links between athletes and supporters, and the processes of deformation and transmutation of the body that take place during a competition.
As an extension of the exhibition, the artist Amine Habki will be running a workshop with a group of fourth-form students. Using their own bodies and a bank of images, the pupils will embroider shields, shin guards and helmets – both protective items and adornments. The Visitor Services Department of the Frac will also be working with a class of fourth-graders to produce a mediation system to help them explore the exhibition Du cri au chant.