Escape[s]

Escape[s] 

 1st - 9th November 2008 

Bertrand Gadenne  

Elsa Gaudefroy-Demombynes 

Manuel Ruiz-Vida 

Present their first exposition in China at the Beijing Today Museum 

Invited artist : Ma Han 

 Building 1, N°32 Baiziwan Road - Chaoyang District, Beijing - 100022 http://www.todayartmuseum.com 

8610-58760600 6000  

Part of a crossroad project providing residencies in China for artists, initiated by the Centre d’arts plastiques et visuels de Lille & the City of Lille with the support of Région Nord – Pas-de-Calais, la DRAC Nord - Pas-de- Calais, CulturesFrance, Lille Métropole - Communauté Urbaine et and with the participation of the Fresnoy studio national des arts contemporains, Doublet, Voyageurs du Monde, Eagst Consulting & Radio Campus Lille 

Links between China and Lille were established in 2004 with the residency at the Centre d’Arts de la Ville de Lille of the artists Ma Han, Ling Fei and Yi Ling. These links were continued in 2005 with the creative residency in Beijing of Xavier Géneau, François Martinache and Olivier Dupont. In the autumn of 2008, Bertrand Gadenne, Elisa Gaudefroy-Demombynes and Manuel Ruiz-Vida will, in their turn, leave for Beijing in order to develop an individuel project at the Beijing Film Academy and, from October 1st to November 12th, will present “Escape[s]“ at the Beijing Today Art Museum in the Chaoyang district, a prestigious venue dedicated to contemporary art in the new business quarter of Beijing. The residency and exhibition are part of a long-term project for exchanges and for residencies by artists from the Nord – Pas-de-Calais region of France in China. Future French residencies will be in Shanghai in 2010 (and either Canton or Hong Kong is projected for 2012). The Chinese artists Zhu Jiong, Gonglin and Bai Yiluo will be welcomed to Lille in 2009. The work of the French artists in residence in Beijing in 2008 will be exhibited in Lille and Dunkerque in 2009 (with other possible sites under discussion). 

 The artists 

Berrand Gadenne – photography – video – installation 

“The Image Room“ 

My work is centred on a representation of the World based on natural elements, and I have always drawn my iconographic sources from natural spaces. Our relationship with nature, and with its representation and domestication, touches on the history and the philosophy of parks and gardens, notably those situated in urban contexts. Many artists, whether urbanists, architects or landscape gardeners, have been inspired over the centuries by Chinese gardens (an example being the gardens designed by Albert Kahn at Boulogne-Billancourt). In Beijing, my research territory will be places of vegetation, the parks, gardens and zoos which are also areas for walking and for thoughtful contemplation. My work as an archivist for photographic and video images will unfurl within the confines of these encyclopaedic environments ; the lake park of North Beihai, the Park of the Ritan Land, the Sky Park of Tian Tan, Dragon Park, Taoranting Park, the zoological park and Yuyantan Park  

Elsa Gaudefroy-Demombynes - cinema - vidéo - 

installation - performance 

“Out of love for those who are gone“ 

This interdisciplinary project, “work in progress“, is at the crosswoads of performance, theatre, film and music, encapsulating a dramatic conception. “Out of love for those who are gone“ is conceived as a form of exploration, between cinematographic writing and social experiment centred around the human condition confronted by its own disappearance : tragedy with personal or collective origins. 

This work revolves around two economies and two temporalities :  performance and documentation. The project will continue in Beijing by researching new testimonies on the same theme, in association with performance and by taking into consideration all the possibilities opened up by the wealth of new encounters.   

Manuel Ruiz-Vida – painting 

I am inspired by the traces, the stigmata, of time on buildings and objects. What interests me is the reality of painting which moves the object of representation to the background. The canvas is material, and that is the true reality, in contrast to the illusion of a simple representation. Manuel Ruiz-Vida developed his interest for naval dockyards, hangars, silos and all that is marked by the wear of time in Dunkerque and its commercial port. In Beijing, Manuel Ruiz- Vida, as a lover of industrial landscapes, will try to bear witness to the evolution of a city which has difficulty reconciling industrial development with a reduction in pollution levels. 

Ma Han – painting – installation 

This Chinese artist, who lives in Beijing, is the historic partner of the artistic exchanges between Lille and Peking. Invited to a residency in Lille in 2004, he has participated in an exhibition in Beijing in 2008 of works by French artists from the Nord – Pas- de-Calais region. 

 Many thanks to Paul Mayes for the english translation