What if clay is the future and the future is clay? Curators Chus Martínez and Filipa Ramos brought together a group of artists to think and create through this old, maleable and fascinating matter. The result was materialized in an exhibition and book format entitled Feet of Clay.
Catalog of the eponymous exhibition, held at the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève and curated by Andrea Bellini, this publication brings together a number of essays that explore the notion of metamorphosis from different perspectives. The catalog, like the exhibition, celebrates a world in constant transformation, where human nature is fluid and hybrid, open to change.
Ce catalogue de l’exposition éponyme, organisée au Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève sous la direction d’Andrea Bellini, rassemble plusieurs essais qui explorent la notion de métamorphose sous différentes perspectives. Le catalogue, comme l’exposition, célèbre un monde en constante transformation, où la nature humaine est fluide et hybride, ouverte au changement.
Fredrik Værslev: The Garden Paintings is the first publication dedicated solely to one specific body of work in the artist’s practice. It includes essays by Martha Kirszenbaum and Erlend Hammer, and gives a comprehensive and chronological account of the works from the series, showing their stylistic development as well as their exhibition history.
Between an artist’s book and a catalogue, this publication follows up on Armleder’s multidimensional exhibition at KANAL in 2020–21. Through archival pictures and in depth conversations, the book is designed to recreate the immersive experience of this collective experiment, and proposes a dive into something akin to a large self-portrait, conceived through the works of more than a hundred artists.
This artist’s book reflects Eva & Franco Mattes’ continued interest in the condition of displacement to be sensed in Fukushima. Borrowing the format of wrapping-paper catalogs, it contains twenty large pre-perforated sheets, each of which features a photographic texture—a seamlessly repeating motif captured by the camera amid the radioactive ruins of the contaminated towns and countryside.
Conceived by Philip Pilekjær, Samuel Haitz, Paolo Baggi and Tobias Kaspar.
Design by Pascal Storz and Lucas Manser
2024, English, softcover, 15 x 20.5 cm, 200 pages
ISBN: 979-12-80579-41-6
PROVENCE was founded in 2009 in Nice, France, and has since shape-shifted through a variety of constellations. Today, PROVENCE operates as a collectively run publishing house and agency for contemporary art.
The ambition of PROVENCE has always been to question and challenge its own format by conceiving exhibitions, artworks, and merchandise in parallel with its publishing and agency activities. This includes exhibitions at Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg; Artists Space, New York; an off-site Hannah Villiger exhibition in Basel; and participation in numerous group exhibitions. Also worth mentioning are a hair salon (never realized), numerous art fair booths, a collection of driftwood, a temporary casino hosted by Etablissement d’en face in Brussels, 215 very real press passes, media partnerships, a travel guide for Nice rated no. 1 in Vogue US, stickers, handbags, and plenty of dinners.
On the occasion of PROVENCE’s 15th anniversary, the reader My Alphabet presents 26 texts published by PROVENCE between 2009 and 2024, either in print or digitally in the weekly newsletter. These texts are sorted alphabetically, ranging from A for Amphetamine to N for Ne travaillez jamais to Z for Gen Z.
My Alphabet compiles selected contributions from the PROVENCE archive by Andrea Legiehn, Anonymous, Artists Space, castillo / corrales, Contemporary Art Writing Daily, Edgars Gluhovs, Enzo Camacho & Amy Lien, Felix Vogel, Huysmans Ringheim, Jay Chung & Q Takeki Maeda, Karl Holmqvist, Mariuccia Casadio, Olga Hohmann & Sophia Eisenhut, PROVENCE, Raphael Gygax, Robert Walser, Sylvie Fleury, Tom Holert, Tyler Dobson, Ulf Wuggenig, and Yugoexport. The book also features Lucie Kolb’s essay “The Potential and Limits of Hobby Criticism,” which illuminates the history and conceptual intentions of PROVENCE and was commissioned specifically for this publication.
Additionally, My Alphabet is accompanied by a poster by Daniele Buetti hidden in the dust jacket and 26 postcards, each sporting a letter sponsored by institutions, galleries, artists, and friends.