The exhibition Autobiographies at the Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton aims to focus propositions from artists of diverse sensibilities, cultures and generations around the common denominator of autobiography. Seemingly destined for a bleak future in the 1960s, the autobiographical genre defied expectations by re-emerging in the second half of the 1970s (the publication of Philippe Lejeune’s Autobiographical Pact constituting among others a symbolic landmark), to become an established theme of contemporary creation from the 1980s onwards.
The artists selected for this exhibition have all taken an interest, be it episodic or enduring, in the autobiographical genre, situating their own stories, origins and genealogies either at the centre or at the margin of their respective approaches and trajectories. The principle defining the project is to demonstrate that – far from being limited to a family of artists – the genre has been capable of inspiring aesthetics as diametrically opposed as those of On Kawara and Mélanie Delattre-Vogt, Ernesto Sartori or Ryan Gander. And yet, however different the artists, we find the same virtually irrepressible necessity to undertake a sort of journey through their own life, and this crossing or travelling back in time often carries a palliative dimension.
While drawing is a constant of the chosen propositions, some artists, true to a primarily literary genre (personified here by Claude Simon), also have recourse to writing (David B., Frédéric Pajak, Franz Erhard Walther), which they combine with their images in a way that may be harmonious or disjunctive (Yvan Salomone). Others utilize evidence that is photographic (Sol LeWitt) or cinematographic (Jonas Mekas, Noëlle Pujol, Fiona Tan). Whatever their perspective, whatever the distance or closeness inherent in their work, all strive to establish the basis of an exchange, since the exposure of their own stories or of instants of intimacy has a sense only if these are open to the virtues and possibilities of sharing.
Artists: David B., Mélanie Delattre-Vogt, Ryan Gander, On Kawara, Sol LeWitt, Jonas Mekas, Frédéric Pajak, Noëlle Pujol, Yvan Salomone, Ernesto Sartori, Claude Simon, Fiona Tan, Franz Erhard Walther.
Exhibition curator: Erik Verhagen
Scenographer: Robert Stadler
