A thematic project by Lili Reynaud-Dewar (November 2010-June 2011)

The Life of an Artist focuses on the concept and the form of biography, and more specifically, the artist’s biography.

Departing from a wide range of art history clichés and statements, from Vasari’s « Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects », generally known as the first book of art history, to the 1960s feminist artists’ credo « The Personal is Political », we will first question the nature of the boundaries that either separate or, on the contrary, intricate the personal life of an artist and his or her work. This will be a way to question what it means exactly to insert one’s life into art, what kind of commitment it requires, and also, maybe, to fantasize and reflect on what life as an artist may be.

There will be different ways to approach the subject and make use of it: One of them, the most autobiographically orientated, will lead us to analyze autobiographical references in the works of artists, and what kind of statement can be produced when those are either strongly visible or, on the contrary, purposefully hidden, like, for instance, in the case of Latifa Echakch’s careful and complex way of preserving her work from being read solely through the cultural and personal lens. Another one, more biographical, will consist of focusing on various projects where artists decide to produce works as a form through which to read elements of another artist’s life, like, for instance, in the case of Jean Cocteau’s portrait by visual artist Marc-Camille Chaimovitz, and his forthcoming project centered around the figure of Jean Genet.

The Life of an Artist will allow us to approach and question a method of artistic production used by many artists today (and yesterday), in which research, extending from literature to various cultural material, is used to produce a work of art, whether this work’s form is textual, sculptural, cinematic, performative, etc… It will also be an opportunity for making use of a genre strongly integrated within our popular culture: the biography, sometimes allowing a manipulation of data and truth for the satisfaction of the audience, political purpose or pure fantasy, sometimes crucially revealing history and context through the examination of one particular character.

The Life of an Artist will give particular attention to text, both as a resource and as a result. We will read biographies and monographs, and reflect on what kind of information they provide for the understanding of an oeuvre. We will focus on artists writing about other artists, and think about the particular relation that exists between the writer and his or her subject of attention, that is to say between two artists in dialogue. And, most importantly, we will produce our own biographical narratives.

The purpose of The Life of an Artist will be to produce a rich and eccentric methodology of research, culminating in a symposium which will take place at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam. Equally important will be the goal of producing works for an exhibition which will take place at the art academy HEAD in Geneva. Finally, we will produce a book which is yet another extension of this project, a form of its own, not only a resumé.

The Life of the Artist Symposium at Piet Zwart Institute. April 8 – 9 2011

The Life of an Artist at HEAD, Geneva. 17 June – 16 July 2011