Abolish this time / Interrupt these places – Chronopolitics I (04.19 – 05.24.2019)

From January 30 to January 31, 2016
From August 17 to September 14, 2016
From June 2 to July 8, 2017
From September 8 to September 30, 2017
From October 6 to November 18, 2017
From December 1, 2017 to January 12, 2018
From December 7 to December 10, 2017
From January 26 to March 24, 2018
From April 12 to May 19, 2018
From May 25 to July 14, 2018
From July 22 to August 18, 2018
From September 20 to October 27, 2018
From October 12 to October 14, 2018
From November 16 to December 22, 2018
From February 9 to March 23, 2019
From April 19 to May 24, 2019

According to data pulled from popular exhibition announcement apps and online art guides to Western art centers, Guillaume Maraud’s first solo exhibition in the United States opens on the same week as 22 gallery exhibitions in Los Angeles, 37 gallery exhibitions in New York, 65 gallery exhibitions in Berlin, 22 gallery exhibitions in London, and 10 gallery exhibitions in Paris. This month, 82 movies and television series will be released on Netflix, 63 movies and television series will be released on Amazon Prime Video and 46 movies will be released in major theaters across the United States.

A mirrored listing of upcoming projects at Édouard Montassut (Paris), Forde (Geneva), and Shore (Vienna) where Maraud exhibited previously, in which he will not be participating, can be found at the entrance of the space.

An X shape marks Bel Ami’s central wall, reassembling posters for spring exhibition programs at various museums in Paris, the city where the artist lives: Fondation Louis Vuitton, Centre Pompidou, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Musée d’Orsay, Musée du quai Branly, Grand Palais etc. Printed on aluminum, the original posters are cropped to convey brackets of time and incidentally, some of the financial supporters of these programs. A video work entitled Preview #2, 2019, comprises a sampling of trailers for recently or soon to be released television series, movies and video games, edited down to their release dates and most spastic frames. While the sensorial overload addresses the capitalization of our attention in the digital era, the grouping’s format also contends with the interventions of conceptual artists who reveal structural apparatuses as a mode of institutional critique.

In the center of the gallery, furniture and appliances used daily by the staff are rearranged into a cluster and ornamented with previously shown sculptures by the artist. Based on an experimental biodegradable funerary urn design from the early 2010s, the sculptures use a variety of materials popular in studio practices deemed “contemporary.” Outwardly though, the urns look mass-produced; their apparent sameness responds to the ambiguous position innovation holds in international contemporary art. The capsules’ re-exhibition and their parasitic relationship to Bel Ami’s furnishings collapses the specificity of the singular event into a more expansive epic.

A Plexiglass window opens up Bel Ami’s storage space, evidencing the gallery’s programmatic history, unsold inventory, and habitual accumulation. Boxes inside are sealed with red tape promoting Maraud’s 23102015 project, a fund started in 2015 with the mission of supporting research on degrowth politics applied to the domain of art. Exposing the gallery’s current structure while proposing a new temporary model, Maraud invites visitors to donate via QR codes, thereby participating in a discussion that confronts existing exhibition frameworks and speculates towards an alternative contemporary art-time sequence.

You can donate to 23102015 at : https://www.paypal.me/23102015
If you have any inquiries, write to info@23102015.org

Guillaume Maraud is an artist based in Paris. He founded 23102015, a fund dedicated to supporting critically engaged art practices and a research platform on art, politics, and economy. Recent presentations of his work include Fondation d’entreprise Ricard, Paris; Édouard Montassut, Paris; Forde, Geneva; Indipendenza, Rome; Bel Ami, Los Angeles; SUPER, Berlin; and Queer Thoughts, New York.

opening April 19, 2019, 7 – 10 PM