Audi Talents, Paris, France
Since its creation in 2007, the Audi Talents program has given strong support to emerging artists in the visual arts, with an endowment of 70,000 euros per project, as well as providing human resource support. Each year, a jury of professionals nominates several winners, selected after a call for projects. The three artists of the 2018 edition are exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo, in the framework of “alt+R, Alternative Reality”, curated by Gaël Charbau.
“Audi Talents is a rather exceptional program since its purpose is to reward three projects per year that combine different categories: film, installation... These projects require a complex implementation, so the program develops around projects of significant scope, for which financial support and production are essential. A budget of 70,000 euros is allocated to each artist, which allows for a large production which we accompany over the period of one year, at the end of which there is an exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo in order to present the achievements of the previous year’s three winners. The 2019 edition is entitled ‘alt + R, Alternative Reality’ because the projects suggest a sort of alternate version of the present world. Gregory Chatonsky’s project consists in entrusting all the means to produce a second earth—from its landscape to its geography and language—to an artificial intelligence: it’s a kind of psychoanalysis of an artificial intelligence which centers around another invented world, and which obviously generates a lot of criticism of our current world, from the use of this artificial intelligence to the presence of new technologies in our lives and big data, that has created a rupture in our civilization, and the consequences of which we most likely have not yet come to terms with. Even though ruptures of unequaled magnitude have occurred in our civilization over the last fifteen years. Marielle Chabal’s project— Al Quamar— takes us to a utopian city in 2024. It is a sort of novel or short story transposed into film and installation, a story set in space. The project presents a community of Westerners settled in this fictional city of Al Quamar, exploring as much as possible this almost new society, urging it to go to the end of the collective dream. But as in all utopias and in any community, problems are present, and the artist’s point of view, which is extremely interesting and relevant, is to make architectures speak. Her project thus brings together models that were made by an architect from his work. These buildings that populate the city have as their purpose notions such as energy, leisure, rest... The film stages actors who embody these architectures, who are thus personified: they speak, discuss and argue sometimes, they do not agree on their role in society and the future of this utopia. By thinking outside of the box in this way, we are able to look at urban architecture and the way cities determine our behavior. As for Léonard Martin’s project, it explores the past, reinterpreting a painting in three panels by Paolo Uccello: The Battle of San Romano. From this new vision of the world, Leonard Martin has recreated a rich narrative of forms drawn from Uccello’s pictorial and graphic repertoire. It is a sensitive and scientific way to show bodies, to discover the emergence of perspective, from which he created 5 meter high puppets, present in the exhibition, and which served as a support for a film which was shot in the gardens of the Villa Medicis. This film evokes a sort of contemporary Battle of San Romano with characters invented by the artist from the real characters of the painting. In our post-truth era, where social networks attempt to make false information true and to deceive the public, I wanted to recall, by simply inverting the words, that this power of imagination and ability to invent new worlds is the role of artists. They are the ones on the front line, able to open up our horizons rather than narrowing them with fake news or lies. We thus have three visions: a trip to the present in a totally virtual world (Grégory Chatonsky); a shift of anticipation with a utopian society (Marielle Chabal), and a deep dive into the past (Léonard Martin).”
“alt+R, Alternative Réalité”, Audi Talents, till July 14, Palais de Tokyo, Paris.