Pawel Althamer

In this exhibition, Pawel Althamer acts as both artist and teacher, gathering together a group of young artists to produce a communal exhibition. Espace 315 has been transformed into a hall of visions. Rows of benches have been installed in a completely white space that is plunged into darkness at regular intervals for the projection of a seventeen-minute film, an uncredited shadow play created by eleven postgraduate students: Céline Ahond, Ziad Antar, Liliana Basarab, Veaceslav Druta, Adriana García Galán, Kapwani Kiwanga, Élise Mougin, Vincent Olinet, Émilie Pitoiset, Koki Tanaka, and Adam Vackar.

The eleven episodes of this project are documented in another film presented elsewhere in the museum. In it, Althamer explains to the young artists, whom he has brought to the remote Polish village of Plochocinek, how their exhibition will not be a destination, but one point along the continuum of their experience. The film’s metacommentary enhances the exhibition while both clarifying and, paradoxically, obscuring Althamer’s role. Under the guise of a solo show, he presents the works of other artists and invents a method for contemporary apprenticeship that involves collective agency; he plays and plays with the role of teacher. The project’s success, of course, is up for debate. But it is an inventive use of the conditions and time constraints imposed by the museum.

Translated from French by Jane Brodie.