& friends
Fahrenheit
2245 E. Washington Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90021
www.fahrenheit.flaxfoundation.org
Fahrenheit, in co-production with Les Ateliers des Arques, is delighted to present “Act so there is no use of a Center:” De(centering) Contemporary Art in the Digital Age, a panel discussion organized by curator Dorothée Dupuis, Fahrenheit’s Writer-in-Residence over the summer of 2014.
Last spring Dupuis was invited to curate the yearly residency session of Les Ateliers des Arques, a 25-year-old program located in a tiny rural village in the southwest of France. She developed her project around the format of the start-up company in order to metaphorically articulate the way productive relationships between centers and peripheries are affected by the digital revolution, in regards to artistic production. The project resulted in an exhibition in the village and was documented through a tumblr blog and social media, which generated interactions within a broad community of global users. The blog lastartup.tumblr.com has been converted into an online magazine, releasing weekly commissioned essays by various writers, curators and thinkers related to the problematics that arose from the project. Recent contributors have included Alex Scrimgeour, Paul S. Sánchez, Jamie Sterns, Andrianna Campbell and Adam Kleinman.
In the framework of her residency at Fahrenheit, Dupuis presents a panel discussing the issues that have come from her project at Les Arques. Drawing from Gertrude Stein’s quote “Act so there is no use of a center” referred to by Alex Scrimgeour in his essay for the Start-Up’s tumblr, the panel aims to examine how the internet and social media have disrupted our perceptions of distance and proximity, challenging positions of power between centers and peripheries. On this panel, four speakers, all equally involved in the art world yet coming from divergent backgrounds and acting in often drastically opposite directions, will discuss the way that these recent changes continue to affect their current positions and strategies. This will be an occasion to share experiences, discuss notions of ethics and responsibility, openly talk about the influence of the market on current artistic production and art institutions, and possibly imagine new tools and perspectives for the future.
Panel participants
Débora Delmar Corp.
Founded in New York City in 2009, Débora Delmar Corp. is the name of Mexico City-based contemporary artist Débora Delmar.
Adam Kleinman
Writer, lecturer, occasional performer, and sometimes curator, based in and out of New York (at the moment).
Ceci Moss
Assistant Curator of Visual Arts at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco and PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at New York University.
Stefan Simchowitz
Collector and independent consultant based between Los Angeles and New York.
About us
Fahrenheit is a non-profit initiative dedicated to research and creation in the field of contemporary art. Conceived by the FLAX Foundation and developed by Director and Curator Martha Kirszenbaum, it is an interrelated residency program and a space dedicated to exhibitions, performances, film programs and talks. It supports the exchange and integration of France-related artists, curators and critics with a particular emphasis on outreach programs in communities within greater Los Angeles.
Every year since 1998, Les Ateliers des Arques selects a guest curator to invite a group of artists to live and work in the rural village of Les Arques. This residency results in the conception of a summer exhibition and a publication. For 2014, participating artists were Andrew Birk, Mathis Collins, Debora Delmar Corp., Yann Gerstberger, Renaud Jerez, Matthieu Laurette and Kara Uzelman. The tumblr was designed by Michael Ray-Von.
Dorothée Dupuis (b. 1980, Paris) is an independent curator and writer based between France and Mexico City. She is the co-director of feminist magazine Petunia and founder of Terremoto.mx, a blog about art in the Americas. Her curatorial projects have been seen recently at Centre Pompidou (Paris), Kunsthalle Freiburg (Switzerland), PSM Gallery (Berlin), Parallel (Oaxaca) and Lodos (Mexico City); and her writings in Spike, Metropolis M, Mousse, Kaleidoscope, and ArtReview, among others. Upcoming projects will take place at Lovenbruck (Paris) during FIAC, as well as Capacete (Rio de Janeiro) and Triangle (Marseille) this winter.
Acknowledgments
FLAX (France Los Angeles Exchange) / Ace Hotel Downtown LA / French Ministery of Culture – DRAC Midi-Pyrénées / Région Midi-Pyrénées / Département du Lot / Communauté de Communes Cazals-Salviac / Mairie des Arques / The Canada Council for the Arts
