The story is fascinating and at the same time a little disconcerting… One of those stories that the postmodern art world loves.
From September 24 to 27, 1969, art theorist Lucy R. Lippard, living in New York, embarked on a journey that would transport her to the Canadian Far North, to Inuvik, in the Northwest Territories. She will stay there for 39.5 hours… Lippard is not traveling alone. She is accompanied by the director of the Edmonton Art Gallery, Bill Kirby, who is financing the trip as part of an exhibition of ephemeral works entitled Place and Process. The art critic Virgil Hammock, who, with Lippard, was to “document” the conceptual creations, is also on the adventure. So do artists NE Thing Co. (Iain and Ingrid Baxter), Harry Savage and Lawrence Weiner, who are actually the reason for this journey. What, in Lippard’s own words, began as “a naively colonialist artistic scouting journey” quickly became a moment of intellectual questioning.
In an intelligent and very successful mise en abîme process, the Lyonnais artist Romain Gandolphe returns to this story in search of the conceptual works that were then created. But did this trip leave other traces?
You have to go see the exhibition To say where I was is impossible for me even if the acoustics of the room are not fabulous and the clarity of the projection is a little parasitized by the lighting of the room. Nevertheless, Romain Gandolphe has produced a very rich video installation.
To see in video