Under the artistic direction of Martin Bethenod, the 9th Nuit Blanche is
centered on contemporary visual art in all its diversity of
expressions (sculpture, video, installation, performance…). Focusing on
the relationship between a work of art, a place and an audience, the event welcomes works by
international artists, while respecting the plurality of genres.
Historic figures such as Michelangelo
Pistoletto rub shoulders with established artists (Chen Zhen, Claude Lévêque, Erik
Samakh, Rirkrit Tiravanija…), as well as emerging artists (Keren Cytter, Nicolas
Milhé, Claire Fontaine…) showing the latest trends in contemporary art
.
From Cuban Wilfredo Prieto to the young Korean HeeWon Lee, from Danish
Joachim Koester to Chen Zhen, a Chinese artist based in France from 1986 until his death,
from French Céleste Boursier-Mougenot to the American-Swiss duo Lang/
Baumann, the artists set up a dialogue beyond borders, the
time of a resolutely transcultural and international Nuit Blanche.
To encourage strolling and wandering, the 2010 edition is structured
around three deliberately tightly-spaced areas, with a real focus on
density.
– Western Paris (around the Alma – Trocadéro hub and major
cultural institutions – Palais de Tokyo, Musée Guimet, Musée d’Art moderne de
la Ville de Paris…).
– Central Paris (around the islands of Saint-Louis, Cité and Marais).
– And finally, the east of Paris (around the Belleville district, at the heart of a
creative bubbling supported by the emergence of young galleries, but also
by this year’s first Belleville Biennial).
These three areas are linked throughout the night by lines 9 and 14
of the metro, which also becomes a stage for artistic creation (Dominique
Blais on line 14; EnsAD at the ghostly Saint-Martin station, line 9),
thanks to a renewed partnership with RATP.
Each of the capital’s flagship zones is populated with demanding and astonishing
artistic proposals which, close to one another,
constitute pedestrian-scale itineraries. Nuit Blanche
is built on an intimate relationship with the city, art and the night.
This 9th edition brings together a large number of art and cultural venues (museums,
monuments, foreign cultural centers, theaters, etc.), as well as
squares, squares and gardens, administrative buildings, sports centers,
leisure or educational centers, hospitals or places of worship…
In addition to specific
productions, the exhibition also features numerous works belonging to public or private
collections (Fonds national d’art contemporain, Fonds régional
d’art contemporain Île-de-France, Fonds municipal d’art contemporain,
collection agnès b…) never or rarely shown. Tino
‘s performance Sehgal Kiss, 2004, belonging to the FNAC, is reactivated at the École
nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts; Cerith Wyn Evans’ La part
maudite par Georges Bataille (1949), 2005, recently acquired by the Musée
d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, is presented in the garden of the Musée
Galliera, while Claude Lévêque’s Mon repos aux Tuileries, 2007, belonging
to the Fonds municipal d’art contemporain, takes up residence in the
Belleville park. In co-production with the Berlin Biennale, the work of Austrian artist
Hans Schabus makes a striking appearance in the courtyard of the Bibliothèque
Historique de la Ville de Paris.
Among the highlights of Nuit Blanche 2010, the work of Thierry Dreyfus
for Notre-Dame or that of the young artist Hakima El Djoudi, both
produced for Nuit Blanche; the parade organized by Rirkrit Tiravanija in
collaboration with musician Arto Lindsay; the reactivation of works
by Erik Samakh at Hôtel-Dieu, by Lang/Baumann at
Belleville elementary school or by Michelangelo Pistoletto on the façade of the Hôtel de Ville
are sure to leave their mark.
Preferring the intimate to the spectacular, the sparkle to the glare of
spotlights, this 9th edition gives way to the mystery that gradually emerges,
to poetry and commitment.
Nuit blanche 2010
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