Swing

ASTERIDES AND MAINS D'ŒUVRES PRESENT THE SECOND SHOW OF SWING : IVAN ARGOT, PAULINE BASTARD, GERALDINE PY, ROBERTO VERDE Free entry, from February 12 to March 21, 2010, open 2 – 7 pm Opening Friday, February 12, 2010 at 6 pm

Ivan Argot and Pauline Bastard know each other by heart and dream of renewal through their work ; Roberto Verde and Géraldine Py seek exoticism and adventure. Mains d'Œuvres and Astérides have put together an exchange ; these two resident artist-couples, who share an interest in disrupting the quotidian and recycling new technologies, meet for Swing. Following the first show in Marseille in November, the artists reunite in Saint-Ouen to produce new works. The project Swing was initiated collaboratively between Astérides (Marseille) and Mains d'Œuvres (Saint-Ouen). The two structures have come together to express, during this two-part proposal, their common dedication to supporting and promoting the work of emerging artists. The result has been two exhibitions : one in Marseille in November 2009, the other in Saint-Ouen in February 2010. Related events, conceived by the artists, will accompany each proposal (performances, film-screenings, encounters).

Ivan Argote “A little humility and lots of humor characterize Ivan Argote's art. This young Columbian, established in France for the past three years, was originally trained as a graphic designer but has expanded into absurdist performance, using the city as his theater of operations. His crowning achievement to date ? Tagging (the glass that covers) the Pompidou Center's two Mondrian paintings. This lighthearted public-area parasite and backstreet vandal, who studied under Claude Closky and Guillaume Paris at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Beaux-Arts, has attempted to distribute yellow coins in the metro (nobody wanted one) and to transform a simple commute into a “making of” (during which, irresistibly, he “directs” the crowd like a consenting actor, from “Action !” to the final “Cut !”). He has also produced a series of photographs in which he mimics the expressions of models in posters reigning over the streets. In short, he takes advantage of even the smallest faults riddling our quotidian in an attempt to make some sense of it, no matter how microscopic. In his digital work as well, he gently derails our systems and routines. He has proven skilled at creating absurd computer programs : one tells the time in money (“it is now ten euros and twenty five cents”) ; one transforms the performance of best-selling artists into bubble graphs according to their year's earnings ; one even shows the current time in different time zones, but with each represented by a one-horse town (“it is 16:34:10 in Jalu”). Whether he pirates tourist blogs, dons false glasses and plays in photo machines, sets up a human-trap in a vacant lot in Berlin, or sets a globe spining along with the chickens in a rotisserie in Bogota, the attention he draws to the thread of stupidity running through our reality recalls the “Actions-peu” of Boris Achour's early work, or the urban interventions of Didier Courbot. Argote's touch, however, is lighter, with more of the quotidian surrealism at which Latin Americans excel.” —Emmanuelle Lequeux

Ivan Argote was born in 1983 in Bogota. He received his diploma from the Paris Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Beaux-Arts in 2009 and has continued to live and work in Paris. He has been an artist-in-residence at Mains d'Œuvres since June 2009 and has recently participated in a collective exhibition at the Emmanuel Perrotin Gallery in Miami.

Pauline Bastard “The radical stakes of Pauline Bastard's work are articulated around the material constraints of the quotidian. She creates works as ephemeral as they are powerful, easily identifiable, which give new life to familiar objects and breach the boundaries between genres with a humor of great originality. Her pieces are situated in an intermediary space, somewhere between life and its representation ; they produce strange encounters and permit the rediscovery of the quotidian. Created using thrown-away objects, of no value in the eyes of consumer society, her little sculptures move, turn, or propel water and come to discreetly inhabit our space. Their hidden motors diffuse the only sound : monotone, mechanical, reinforcing the timid presence of these ordinary objects, which take on a role as new as it is surprising. These interventions, this recycling of the environment, these useless constructions, put the usual hierarchies into question and divert the traditional values of art, and in a broader sense, of life. The use of “poor” materials, exempt of any economic value, reveals the humanist dimension of these pieces, which touch on reality but in an unreal manner. Pauline Bastard's most recent projects make use of the iconography of the digital world to which we are exposed every day, but not always consciously. In manipulating various applications, the artist uses digital tools to compose veritable computerized skits. In her videos, she animates popular desktop backgrounds in order to rethink notions of landscape and of the image in general, often replaced by diagrams that dissimulate their true nature. Her work questions the concept of the traditional painting in freezing part of reality in a framed image, and by introducing notions of time and intimate memories through superimposed recorded monologues. In the suspended moment that is the ideal image, human voices question traditional representations. The series in which Pauline Bastard uses a spinning multi-colored wheel—the Macintosh equivalent of the Windows hourglass—constitutes a parody of the fated moment when the screen immobilizes. The apparition of this little spherical rainbow generally plunges us into frustration, and a feeling incompetence. As the universal symbol of the system glitch rolls over mountain crests or is transposed over the setting sun of a romantic photograph, the new international language is put into the context of a virtual burlesque, borrowing fragments of the quotidian : fragments which, despite their debonair appearance, obey only the will of the artist.” —Sari Stenczer

Pauline Bastard was born in 1982 in Rouen. She received her diploma from the Paris Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in 2009 and has continued to live and work in Paris. She has been an artist-in-residence at Mains d'Œuvres since June 2009 and has recently exposed work with Roman Signer at blank (Paris).

Géraldine Py and Roberto Verde “Fascinated by the real, Géraldine Py and Roberto Verde conquer it, divert it, shift it, and tinker with it. A city comes to life under the first rains (“Cartonville,” 2009) ; a mechanical shovel and loader abandon themselves to childish muddy games (“Jeux dans l'eau,” 2009) ; degus become musicians (“Allegro Moderato Ma Non Troppo,” 2008). Like stage directors, the artists organize their universes and cast their characters to create unexpected representations. Very simply, they invent fables and encourage interactions between diverse elements. The resulting act, though often clear enough to be characterized in a single word (little, unproductivity, enthusiasm, approximation, marvel, etc.), also instigates a train of thought leading toward vaster perspectives. Py and Verde's works draw on such fields of confrontation as philosophy, literature, music, cinema, science, or economy, and take aim at universal notions that the artists, depending on the piece, amuse themselves with daubing in grotesque, fantastical, or tender colors. In “Le printemps” (2009), two sections of pipe, one in motion and the other inert, approach and search for one another. In “Edredons” (2009), cushions collide violently and lose their feathers. With humor and derision, the events underlying these encounters are simple and often improbable. One bucket tries to spit in another without ever succeeding ; the bucket remains empty, a puddle forms on the ground (“Seaux,” 2007). A pea flies and rests in suspension (“La levitation du petit pois (homage to Roberto Verde),” 2009). A plaque of metal activates in a movement from below, making an immense din when it finally embraces the ground (“Etendue de metal,” 2009). More discreetly, soundlessly, little objects scattered around the studio (lightbulbs, bottlecaps, padlocks, etc) meet and make alliances (“Fils de bave,” 2009). Py and Verde use appropriation, diversion, and even a sort of theatrical direction to produce works that are deployed in an environment and temporality all their own. As in classical theater, the structure of these works represents a unity of time, space, and action. Movement is then added, often toward something else, a consenting interlocutor, sometimes not : a movement linking the different elements (living organisms, static objects) with the help of the sound it produces. Produced by natural (water, air), mechanical, or technological sources, the dynamism in Py and Verde's agglomerations is at once performative and theatrical. The artists use all the finery of these experimentatal domains to propose an unusual, poetic, and constantly refreshed view of reality.” —Nadine Maurice and Mathilde Guyon

Géraldine Py was born in 1986 in Belfort, France, Roberto Verde in 1981 in Jesi, Italy. Having both received their diplomas from the Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Marseille (in 2009 and 2008, respectively), they continue to live and work in Marseille, where they were artists-in-residence at Astérides in 2009. A video series by Géraldine Py is currently on display as part of the exhibition Poétique du chantier at the Musée-Château d'Annecy. Roberto Verde's work entitled “Vases communiquants” was recently exhibited at the Fondation Ecureuil in Marseille from November 23 to 30, and on December 30 as part of “Artissima” at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Marseille.