morceaux de soleil at Meessen de Clercq, Brussels

solo show

Thebes at Spike Island, Bristol

Solo exhibition
Spike Island, Bristol, UK
October 5 - December 16, 2018

BIG ART at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen

Large-scale contemporary art in architecture created by Bjarke Ingels Group
21 sep – 13 jan 2019
Opening: 20 sep 2018 18:00

pomme et déchet indexé at Temporary Gallery, Koln

STRAUB/HUILLET/CÉZANNE. ONE DOESN'T PAINT SOULS
Harald Bergmann, Gerald Domenig, gerlach en koop, Peter Handke, Gerard Hemsworth, Benoît Maire, John Rewald, Ker-Xavier Roussel, Hartwig Schwarz, Jean-Marie Straub/Danièle Huillet, Joëlle Tuerlinckx, Rémy Zaugg
8 Sept – 16 Dec 2018
Opening: Fri 7 Sept, 7 pm

Temporary Gallery
Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst e.V.
Mauritiuswall 35, D 50676 Köln

Thèbes in TL Magazine

itw with Lara Chapman

Le mot origine, premiere at Fid Marseille

13.07.201811:00
Alcazar

15.07.201810:45
Villa Méditerranée

PARIS PEINTURE

june 10 - august 2018

quadrilatère Beauvais

22 rue Saint-Pierre
60000 Beauvais
03.44.15.67.00

Anne Laure Sacriste, Bastien Cosson, Benoît Maire, Benjamin Swaim, Corentin Canesson, Camila Oliveira Fairclough, Clément Rodzielski, Emmanuel van der Meulen, Julien Monnerie, Karina Bisch, Matthieu Cossé, Nicolas Chardon, Quentin Lefranc, We Are The Painters and Paul Nicoué

un cheval, des silex at galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris

June 8 - July 21, 2018
Cloître Saint-Merri, Paris

In Benoît Maire's work, material is not just physical: it is also theoretical. Art and philosophy are inseparable. Concepts elaborated by Lyotard, Agamben, Bataille, or Lacan flood his works the way physical substances can. While it is the distinction between nature and culture that comes into question, Benoît Maire is also interested in the intrinsic qualities of the objects, which he chooses for their enigmatic power. His first exhibition at the gallery, Un cheval, des silex, rests on the axiom that “the plural of horse is flints." The artist, whose sense of humor suffuses his work, appears to be teasing us: what can he possibly mean by suggesting that the plural of horse would be flints? A conundrum prevails and hangs over the suspended landscape of this installation, and, while it remains unresolved, the enigma seems to go on forever.  

new catalog out !

Colophon / Colophon Livre / Book Conception éditoriale / Editorial concept: Benoît Maire Auteurs / Authors: Mieke Bal, Vincent Honoré, Rahma Khazam, Magali Nachtergael Conception graphique / Graphic design: Åbäke Supervision & coordination éditoriale / Editorial supervision & coordination: Alice Motard et / and Romaric Favre Traduction / Translation De l'anglais au français / From English to French: Nicolas Vieillecazes Du français à l'anglais / From French to English: Martyn Back (avec / with Rahma Khazam pour Le sens-sans- signe, p. 76–90 / for Signification without Sign, 76–90) Relectures / Proofreading Anglais / English: Bronwyn Mahoney Français / French: Anne-Laure Blusseau Impression / Printing: FranceRol Impression Benoît Maire tient à remercier particulièrement / particularly wishes to thank Benoît Doche de Laquintane (DLD) ainsi que / and Laura Amann, Lorenzo Benedetti, Thomas Bernard, Juana Berrio, Anna Castella, Alex Cecchetti, Étienne Chambaud, Marie Corbin, Isabelle Cornaro, Oliver Croy, Guillaume Désanges, Adrienne Drake, Jean-Pierre Foubet, Céline Villars-Foubet, José Garcia, Liam Gillick, Sophia Girabancas-Perez, François Laruelle, Valery Laurand, Zach Miner, Hélène Nguyen Ban, Henrikke Nielsen, Lisa Panting, Falke Pisano, Victoire de Pourtalès, Reto Pulfer, Evariste Richer, Anne-Françoise Schmid, Malin Ståhl, Thomas Thiel, Leticia Vilalta, Nicky Zurlino et les collectionneurs privés / and the private collectors Ce livre a reçu le soutien de / This book is supported by Galerie Nathalie Obadia Meessen De Clercq, Bruxelles / Brussels Publié par / Published by CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux Distribution / Diffusion France, Belgique, Luxembourg, Suisse / France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland 35, rue Colson, 21000 Dijon - France T+33 (0)3 80 30 75 23 F+33 (0)3 80 30 59 74 www.lespressesdureel.com info@lespressesdureel.com Distribution internationale / International diffusion Idea Books Nieuwe Herengracht 11 1011 RK Amsterdam The Netherlands www.ideabooks.nl Nos Partenaires / Our patrons Mécène d'honneur / Honorary patron Partenaire fondateur / Founding patron Les Amis du CAPC Partenaires bienfaiteurs / Leading patrons Lacoste Traiteur, Fondation Daniel & Nina Carasso Partenaires donateurs / Patrons SUEZ, Mercure Bordeaux Cité Mondiale, Château Chasse-Spleen, Château Le Bonnat, Le Petit Commerce Le CAPC musée d'art contemporain est un musée de la ville de Bordeaux / The CAPC musée d'art contemporain is a museum of the City of Bordeaux CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux Directrice / Director María Inés Rodríguez Directeur adjoint / Deputy director Philippe Berbion Secrétariat de Direction / Executive secretariat Béatrice Vigué Projets / Projects Alice Motard et / and Anne Cadenet, Alice Cavender, Cyril Chaumeau, Bernard Dulile, Nadine Escudero, Romaric Favre, Valérie Lantignac, Martine Péan, François Poisay, Evelyne Videau-Sinsou Publics Myrtille Bourgeois, Léo Corréa, Véronique Darmanté, Thibault Mahieux, Stéphane Mallet, Julie Nio, Béatrice Vert Développement et Partenariats / Development and Partnerships Philippe Berbion (interim) et / and Isalyne Gouault Presse et Communication / Press and Communication Pedro Jiménez Morrás et / and Karine Daviaud, Dominique Merle Technique / Technical services Christophe Houdent et / and Renaud Beaurepaire, Stéphane Espugne-Darses, Véronique Huber, Pascal Lacampagne, Sylvain Mavel, Samuel Quebre Administration Maryse Le Bars et / and Beverly Bitard, Vincent Castanet, Marinette Claveau, Dominique Crouzet, François Denis, Valérie Desbiailhs, David Dinh, Jöelle Ferré, Farida Forgue, Fabien Guiet, Philippe Labénère, François Magendie, Jean-Luc Plétan, Patrick Renard, Julien Rister, Bernadette Sallaud, Saddek Tekamara, Manuella Vandellos Boutique / Museum store Muriel Dupont et / and Marie Lauriat Crédits / Credits © Benoît Maire, 2018 © CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux, 2018 © Åbäke, 2018 © Les auteurs, le graphiste, les traducteurs, les ayants droit et légataires / The authors, the graphic designer, the translators, the rights holders and legatees, 2018 Tirage / Print run: 2000 ISBN: 978-2-87721-237-3 EAN: 9782877212373 Dépôt légal / Legal deposit avril / April 2018 Tous droits réservés / All rights reserved Achevé d'imprimer en / Printed in avril / April 2018 In memoriam Jérémie Buchholtz, Aurélie Caudron

Thèbes in Les Inrocks

Non, il ne faut pas avoir peur de l'art conceptuel

Julie Ackermann

Benoît Maire in The Last Magazine, NY

GIVE UP THE GHOST

Baltic Triennial 13 at the Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius / curated by Vincent Honoré 

11 May–12 August, 2018, exhibition opening: 11 May, 2018

KEDEM–KODEM–KADIMA at The Center for Contemporary Art Tel Aviv

March 30 – May 26, 2018

Participants:

Diti Almog, Arahmaiani, Yochai Avrahami, Ilit Azoulay, Guy Ben-Ner, Monica Bonvicini, Born from Rock, Rafram Chaddad, Latifa Echakhch, Ceal Floyer, Shilpa Gupta, Peter Halley, Michal Helfman, Chourouk Hriech, Gaston Zvi Ickowicz, Eti Jacobi, Christian Jankowski, Kitty Kraus, Jannis Kounellis, Agnieszka Kurant, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Benoît Maire, Alex Mirutziu & TAH29, Jonathan Monk, Laurent Montaron, Natan Tarfe, Joshua Neustein, Adrian Paci, Eli Petel, Pratchaya Phinthong, Wilfredo Prieto, Public Movement UBLIC MOVEMENT, Tomer Rosenthal, Miri Segal, Ariel Schlesinger, Shiri Tarko, Jan Tichy, Naama Tsabar, Alice Tomaselli, Lihi Turjeman, Günther Uecker, Johannes VanDerBeek, Lawrence Weiner, and Nevet Yitzhak

Curator:

Nicola Trezzi

Thèbes at CAPC Musée, Bordeaux

08.03.2018 - 02.09.2018
BENOÎT MAIRE
Thèbes

Benoît Maire présente son travail de mars à septembre 2018 au CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux dans une grande exposition monographique intitulée Thèbes.

----

Regroupant près de 80 oeuvres, l'exposition revient sur les dix dernières années de création de l'artiste bordelais dont le travail se situe au croisement entre l'art et la philosophie. Elle est conçue comme un assemblage de trois séries composé d'oeuvres nouvelles (sculptures, peintures, mobilier et objets du quotidien) sur lesquelles se greffent des oeuvres plus anciennes et des documents retravaillés par l'artiste. Fondée sur des articulations multiples et des retours sur le passé, elle soulève des interrogations sur la menace anxiogène et les dangers qui pèsent sur une société contemporaine en perpétuel questionnement sur elle-même. La première monographie de référence consacrée à l'artiste sera publiée à cette occasion ; comprenant des textes critiques de Mieke Bal et de Magali Nachtergael, un essai visuel de Vincent Honoré et une interview de Rahma Khazam, la publication sera disponible dès l'ouverture de l'exposition au CAPC musée.

Theatre of Measurement, Kunstverein Munchen, Munich

An ongoing group exhibition in the Schaufenster am Hofgarten 
4 February – 20 December 2017

BENOÎT MAIRE Cloud Paintings at Arsenal Contemporary, New-York

15 November 2017 - 14 January 2018
opening reception: Wednesday 15 November, 6-8pm

"In the midst of chaos there was shape; this eternal passing and flowing (she looked at the clouds going and the leaves shaking) was struck into stability."
- Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

Arsenal Contemporary is pleased to present Cloud Paintings, an exhibition by Benoît Maire, bringing together a series of new paintings completed during a residency at Arsenal Contemporary Montréal.

Clouds are an elemental resource valued for their mutability. Sky-gazing has consistently shaped human culture, functioning as a gateway into the unknown for personal reflection, collectivized imaginings, and future portents. While, historically, clouds have provided the original forecasts for meteorology, today cloud-computing processes vast amounts of information to create predictive models for human behavior.
What previously represented the house of God, contemporaneously functions as the foundation for artificial intelligence. The signature flat bottom of Maire's clouds references popular cloud-computing icons. These symbols, either stenciled in or dripping down the canvas, appear as if seen through fog or on a clear day.

Similarly, the paint itself mimics different types of condensation, appearing in thin wisps like cirrus clouds or heavy impasto shapes like cumulous clouds. The varied application of color and brushstrokes on unprimed or gessoed ground allows for mimesis to prevail in compositions teetering between process and object.

Maire joins a long tradition of artists who have taken up the heavens as subject matter. Medieval and Renaissance painters developed vast technical skills for depicting the sky. This was intensified in the 19th century by Romantic painters such as John Constable, who considered clouds to be "the chief organ of sentiment," communicating the inner-world of his subjects. The clouds reflect spirituality in both the cosmos and deep trenches of our psyches, offering a simpler understanding of ourselves and our environment.

A child's game of discovery, wherein likenesses are extracted from ephemeral and dispersed masses, is here invoked by the artist's ability to transform marks into common forms, to weave seamlessly between abstraction and figuration. Maire's continued engagement with the sky emphasizes the canvas as a screen for emotional projection and, consequently, illustrates that paintings are an arena for the construction of an unstable pictorial system.

Conjugaison n°1 in Vancouver Art Gallery Collection

Conjugaison n°1,
cut stones, lambda prints, glass
110 x 42 x 82 cm
2013

un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard at La Borie, Solignac

Marcel Broodthaers / István Csákány / Ian Hamilton Finlay / Thomas Grünfeld / Rodrigo Hernández / Sofia Hultén / William Hunt / Nicolás Lamas / Rodrigo Matheus / Benoît Maire / Christopher Orr / Oscar Santillan

Homestead at Carl Louie, Ontario, Canada

David Merritt, Jason Fox, Dylan Macaulay, Eric Veit, Ryan Foerster, Tegan Moore, David Flaugher, Chris Dorland, Sky Glabush, Mack Ludlow, Emily Moriarty, Zoë Mpeletzikas,Vanessa Maltese, Laurie Kang, Benoît Maire, Kelly Jazvac, Colin Miner, Andrei Koschmieder, Patrick Howlett, Jesse Chapman, Jeanette Mundt, Adam Revington, Libby Rothfeld, Hannah Buonaguro, Kara Hamilton, Neil Klassen, Alivia Zivich

July 15 - August 22, 2017

sans réserves at MAC VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine

Claire Adelfang
Dove Allouche
Ismaïl Bahri
Élisabeth Ballet 
Oliver Beer
Amélie Bertrand 
Anne Brégeaut 
Elina Brotherus
Clément Cogitore 
Stephen Dean 
Sylvie Fanchon 
Lola Gonzàlez 
Benoît Maire
Angelika Markul 
Charlotte Moth 
Stéphanie Nava
Jean-Christophe Norman 
Vincent Olinet 
Bruno Peinado 
Paul Pouvreau
Evariste Richer
Sophie Ristelhueber
Jérôme Robbe 
Franck Scurti 
Alain Séchas
Tatiana Trouvé 
Jean-Luc Vilmouth

MAC VAL
Musée d'art contemporain du Val-de-Marne
Place de la Libération CS10022
94407 Vitry-sur-Seine cedex

2037 at DOC, Paris

Isabelle Cornaro, Julien Crépieux, Guillaume Landron, Benoît Maire, Bruno Persat, Chloé Quenum, Clément Rodzielski

Sur une bande originale du London Fields Group (Julien Gasc, Syd Kemp, Cathy Lucas, Valentina Magaletti, Harry Bohay, Tom Furse, Cédric Monzali, Elliott Ardnt, Spencer Martin)

Concert de Benjamin Glibert le 3 juin à 21h

03.06 - 24.06.2017

DISASTER at Croy Nielsen Vienna

Benoît Maire : Disaster
1. 6. – 8. 7. 2017
Opening
Wednesday, 31. 5. 2017, 19:00 – 21:00

Image Credit: a Still from the Music Video "Ivan Ilić plays Antoine Reicha" directed by Benoît Maire

Politics of Things, Art Brussels Talks

2.30 pm
Conversation (60 mn): Jamieson Webster and Benoît Maire with Piper Marshall

Jamieson Webster (b. 1979) is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in New York where she works with children, adolescents and adults. She teaches at Eugene Lang College and is the author of The Life and Death of Psychoanalysis (2011) and Stay, Illusion! (2014) with Simon Critchley. She is currently working on The Cambridge Introduction to Jacques Lacan, and a new book titled Conversion Disorder.

Benoît Maire (b. 1978) is a French artist working in a wide variety of media such as film, sculpture, photography, painting as well as writing. His work is described as a territory where art and philosophy merge to form what he calls the Aesthetics of Difference in which neither art nor theory exist any longer as autonomous entities.

On Affection at Nogueras Blanchard, Barcelona

On Affection: Benoît Maire
Exhibition dates: 18th March to 28th April 2017
Opening: Saturday, March 18th from 12am to 3pm

NoguerasBlanchard is pleased to announce the third iteration of On Affection, a group exhibition extended in time in the gallery's space in L´Hospitalet focusing on performative practices that emphasize bodily experience and its ability to affect and be affected. Over the period of one season, participating artists are: Mercedes Azpilicueta, Fermin Jimenez Landa, Benoît Maire, Jacopo Miliani, Bruce Nauman, Christodoulos Panayiotou and Cally Spooner.

What we call performance these days is not the same as it was in its beginning. The practice has gone through many changes across the years while the supremacy of the object has been questioned. What hasn´t changed through the past years is the affective potential of performative practices upon audiences. Affection is the process whereby affect - in the Deleuzian sense - is transmitted between bodies and there is no secure distinction between the 'individual' and the 'environment'. In short, Affect cannot be fully realised in language but only through the body grammar.

On this occasion, French artist Benoît Maire presents a new work, Castling Pieces, Piece 1 to 14 (2017). Taking as its' starting point the installation Letre created for La Verrière (Brussels) this work is an archipelago of sculptural situations in which performances activate relations between the objects on site. Made of what he describes as «decided objects» and «waste» – these two terms shape his work and refer to the materials transformed by the artist into sculptural named objects, and also connect to the residue from decisions made on certain objects, which are thus «undecided» and unnamed. As in previous works, the artist pinpoints a question that governs his practice: categorization of objects (in the show such categories are: hidden, either/or forgotten, decided objects, disaster, those, natural, man-made, amongst others). This installation is formed by more than 70 elements presented on a display wooden board that can all be combined into 14 pieces to be castled on the site via performances.

During the course of the show the objects are shifted following a score that is diffused on loop on a flat screen. In this way, "castling" – a move in chess to protect the King – draws on the idea of affection as expressed through objects (rather than bodily affection); the pieces through castling are expressive of bodily action as rooted in the capacity to be affected.

Julien Carreyn avec Ker-Xavier at GDM, Paris

Furniture by Ker-Xavier and photoraphs by Julien Carreyn at Galerie de Multiples, Paris

7 January - 11 february 2017

Galerie de Multiples
17, rue Saint-Gilles
75003 Paris    +33 (0)148872177

premier cercueil at Palette Terre, Paris

solo show
11.12.16 - 18.12.16
opening: december the 11th,  4 pm

Castled by Benoît Maire at José Garcia, mx in Mousse Magazine

New release: victoria by Julien Carreyn

Video work by Julien Carreyn featuring Victoria in Benoît Maire exhibition at Vnh Paris titled "some sphinx"

lecture, école des Beaux-Arts, Rennes

with Odile Le Borgne, Christophe Viart, François Perrodin, Dominique Abensour, Joëlle Le Saux, Clément Rodzielski, Olivier Nottellet, Marjolaine Lévy, Christian Besson, Élodie Lesourd, Guillaume Pinard

Letre, in Reponse, MACL, Saint-Jérome, Québec

Castled at José Garcia in Merida

 
joségarcía ,mx is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition

castled - benoît maire

opening - october 08, 2016

17.00 hrs.

Calle 77 #568-O x 78 y 80 Centro
Mérida, Yucatán, México
tel. + 52 (999) 429 4645

Letre, screening at VNH gallery, Paris

Saturday 10 th September / 6-8 pm

Benoît Maire in the White Review, London

Ker-Xavier with Julien Carreyn in Chez Bergeron at Vent des forêts, Meuse

july 16th - september 18th, 2016

credit photo: Julien Carreyn
wooden stool and metal structures by Ker-Xavier

quelques sphinx at VNH Gallery, Paris

8 July - 17 September

with: Anonyme Russe, Le Corbusier ?, Jean Derval, Lito S. Freeman, Ker-Xavier

VNH Gallery is delighted to present Benoît Maire's quelques sphinx project, which explores the status of objects from a collection in an exhibit where the works of supposed or specified artists dialogue at the very place where the signatures un-define themselves and become more complex to the point of blurring their origins.

Lost Films as Philosophical Fiction Anne-Françoise Schmid, Benoît Maire, published by Robin Mackay at Urbanomic

Lito S. Freeman and Benoît Maire show reviewed by Ken Johnson in The New-York Times

Lito S. Freeman, Benoît Maire at ROOM EAST, New-York

9 JUNE - 10 JULY

Benoît Maire in Mousse

on going discussion with Cédric Aurelle

George slays the Dragon, solo show at Bielefelder Kunstverein, Bielefeld

BENOÎT MAIRE
APRIL 23 – JULY 10, 2016

Benoît Maire develops his works in the spaces between art, philosophy, display and thought. In his paintings, sculptures, videos and installative arrangements, he seeks an experimental and practical pathway into fundamental theoretical propositions of aesthetics. With Maire, ideas find themselves translated in the form of pictures and objects. In his latest works, the artist devotes attention to, among other things, the art-historical motif of clouds, which reflects in the medium of painting itself and in his own artistic developments. In this process, he is interested in, for instance, a »groundlessness of expression in expression« capable of being experienced. What appear to be unimportant residues and rubbish gain a new currency as a mark of his actual work and as traces of the decisions made in a process of artistic creativity. Differing elements are embedded in installations, assume a deliberate relationship with one another and become equal parts of his artistic work as a whole. Benoît Maire is developing new paintings and sculptures for his exhibition at the Bielefelder Kunstverein and is including transformed site-specific objects into the presentation of his exhibition.

Curator: Thomas Thiel

Photographies du soir at Crevecoeur, Paris

an exhibition by Julien Carreyn with Ker-Xavier, Jorge Mantas, Claudine Monchaussé. Curated and scenographed by Benoit Maire
March 18 - May 14

THE PROMISE OF TOTAL AUTOMATION at Kunsthalle Wien

Curator: Anne Faucheret

Artists: Athanasios Argianas, Zbyněk Baladrán, Thomas Bayrle, James Benning, Bureau d'Etudes, Steven Claydon, Tyler Coburn, Philippe Decrauzat & Alan Licht, Harry Dodge, Juan Downey, Cécile B. Evans, Judith Fegerl, Melanie Gilligan, Peter Halley, Channa Horwitz, Geumhyung Jeong, Barbara Kapusta, Nick Laessing, Tobias Madison & Emanuel Rossetti, Benoît Maire, Daria Martin, Wesley Meuris, Henrik Olesen, Julien Prévieux, Magali Reus...

CASTLING THE QUEEN at Meessen de Clercq, Brussels

Solo Show, 19-02 - 9-04-2016

ZODIACO at Hopstreet Gallery, Brussels

Curated by Davide Bertocchi

23 January - 05 March 2016

Davide Bertocchi (Aries) / G. Küng (Taurus) / Camille Henrot (Gemini) / Elise Cam (Gemini) / Thorsten Brinkmann (Cancer) / Florian & Michael Quistrebert (Leo) / Emilie Pitoiset (Virgo) / Benoit Maire (Libra) / Charlotte Moth (Scorpio) / Evariste Richer (Ophiuchus) / Joris Van de Moortel (Sagittarius) / Alessandro Di Pietro (Capricorn) / Shila Khatami (Aquarius) / Elia Cantori (Pisces) / Olve Sande (Pisces)

OBJECTS FROM THE TEMPERATE PALM HOUSE at Bargain Spot, EDINBURGH

Group Show

16 JANUARY - 27 FEBRUARY 2016

JACK BRINDLEY / TOBY CHRISTIAN / JASPER COPPES / DUNJA HERZOG / BAS VAN DEN HURK / NATALIA JANULA / BENOIT MAIRE / JOE FLETCHER ORR / SAM SMITH / MARIE TOSELAND / JESSE WINE

An exhibition organised by Chloe Reith and Kirsty White. Bargain Spot, 12 Earl Grey Street, Edinburgh, EH3 9BN. Wednesday - Saturday, 12 - 6pm 

A.N.T.H.R.O.P.O.C.E.N.E at Meessen De Clercq, Brussels

december 12, 2015 - february 6, 2016

Ignasi Aballí, Vanessa Billy, Katinka Bock, Milena Bonilla, Susan Collis, Jordi Colomer, Lieven De Boeck, Ryan Foerster, Hreinn Fridfinnsson, Aurélien Froment, Ryan Gander, Filip Gilissen, Ellen Harvey, Adam Henry, Nicolás Lamas, Guillaume Leblon, Benoît Maire, Jorge Méndez Blake, Navid Nuur, Claudio Parmiggiani, Tania Pérez Córdova, Wilfredo Prieto, Benoît Pype, Evariste Richer, Fabrice Samyn, Kelly Schacht, José María Sicilia, Lucy Skaer, Thu Van Tran, Chaim van Luit, Maarten Vanden Eynde, Leon Vranken

l'anatomie de l'automate at LA PANACÉE CENTRE DE CULTURE CONTEMPORAINE - MONTPELLIER

21-11-2015 / 28-02- 2016

group show

Eric Baudart, Thomas Bayrle, Erick Beltran, Georges-Alexandre Chicotot, Philippe Decrauzat, Harun Farocki, Lauren Huret, Konrad Klapheck, Eva Kotátková, Tetsumi Kudo, Selma Lepart, Benoît Maire, Nathaniel Mellors, Anita Molinero, Laurent Montaron, Matt Mullican, Jean Perdrizet, Thomas Ruff, Markus Schinwald, Alain Séchas, Thomas Struth, Paul Thek, Francisco Tropa, Tatiana Trouvé, Ulla von Brandenburg, Christopher Williams

cur. Paul Bernard

Nuages et déchets reviewed in LIBERATION by Judicaël Lavrador

Unstable Weapons and Two Tools in l'effet Vertigo at MacVal, Vitry

Group Show / Collection

24/10/2015 - 6/03/2016

NUAGES ET DÉCHETS at galerie Thomas Bernard, Paris

Solo Show - 10.22.2015 - 12.05.2015

Opening - October 22nd 2015

"Nuages et déchets" comprises paintings of clouds, new sculptures and a series of "wastes".

Mathieu Copeland: Why did you use this term "waste" when it has such a negative value?

Benoit Maire: Until recently, I believed that the act of speaking was that of chucking garbage in front of you. By talking of garbage I was able to place myself on the accursed, dark side of philosophical genealogy. This garbage which is extracted from the bottomless pit of our consciousness and which we throw out in front of ourselves, is what allows us to move forward. A negative value has been ascribed to something which effectively drives expression. What is interesting about expression is its bottomless or groundless part. The groundlessness of expression in expression is what matters to me. My idea was that all that we write and speak involves chucking garbage in front of us. We are purveyors of garbage. My next thought was that the artist was a garbage collector. Then I talked about this with a friend, and it was his turn to be the garbage collector... An illustration of how we throw things in front of us when we speak. An illustration of the garbage collector who picks things up from the ground and gives them meanings. So, when I make sculptures, I am forced to make a decision and this guides my objects and gives them qualities. And I subtract the parts of these objects that I am going to throw away. Ultimately, it is the waste that attracts me, and perhaps it is this particular waste that is linked to the strongest ontology, as it is the reverse of the teleological ontology which guides my objects through decisions. The non-decided part of the object remains in the waste. And the waste, as it is non-decided, is what contains the greatest power. A power that we cannot delineate, nor can we name it because it is unrelated to any decisions arising from the naming process. All that we can do then is to index it, to point it out with a finger.

Love Being in Nel Mezzo del Mezzo, Muséo Riso, Palermo

Group show

cur. C. Macel & B. Mari & M. Bazzini
10 Oct. - mid Jan. 2016

HG n° 18 in Là où commence le jour at LAM, Lille

group show

cur. Marc Donnadieu & Pauline Creteur
02/10/15 - 10/01/16

Jahresgaben, Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg

Photographie de quelques armes roses, diasec mounted on oak, 27 x 37 x 2,5 cm, 2013.  signed on the back, unique piece

Pauline à la plage, group show, galerie de multiples, Paris

03 July - 01 August 2015

Cur. Claire Moulène & Judicaël Lavrador

with Julien Carreyn, Mark Geffriaud, Paul-Armand Gette, Alex Katz, Benoît Maire, Antoine Marquis, Gerald Petit, Jack Pierson, Clément Rodzielski, Lei Saito, Marie Voignier, Amy Williams

THE CRACK-UP, group show, Room East, New-York

28 JUNE - 8 AUGUST

ROBIN CAMERON / JOSEPH CORNELL / LAEH GLENN / DARIO GUCCIO / DAVID KORTY / DANA LOK / GEORGE HENRY LONGLY / BENOÎT MAIRE / JULIA WACHTEL / B. WURTZ

"...the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise."

- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-Up, 1936

some Conjonctions in LES IMAGES CONSTELLANTES at Villa du Parc, Annemasse

« Elles sont toutes fausses, délicieusement fausses, ces constellations ! Elles unissent, dans une même figure, des astres totalement étrangers. Entre des points réels, entre des étoiles isolées comme des diamants solitaires, le rêve constellant tire des lignes imaginaires » Gaston Bachelard, l'Air et les Songes

with: Luis Jacob, Ryan Gander, Aurélien Froment, Alexandra Leykauf, Benoit Maire, Jonathan Monk, Sara VanderBeek / et Christophe Daviet-Thery, "Je déballe ma bibliothèque, re(composition)"

some New Works in TRANSMISSIONS at Beaux-Arts de Paris

group show curated by Sarina Basta

19 june - 14 july 2015
opening: june the 18th at 6.30 pm

with: Rita Ackermann, Josef Albers, John Baldessari, Joseph Beuys, Thierry Boutonnier, Travis Boyer, Kasper Bosmans, Kim Bradford, Atelier Bruguera, Zoé Capdevielle, Greg Castéra, Paul Créange, Édouard Cuyer, Bady Dalloul, Alexandre Damerval, Nicolas Darrot, Mark Dion, Guillaume-Benjamin Duchenne, Albrecht Dürer, Robert Filliou, Mara Fortunatović, Mats Gustau, Isabella Hin, Thomas Hirschhorn, Jean-Antoine Houdon, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Max Jefcut, Pablo Jomaron, Yaël Kreplak, Jean-Gaspard Lavater, Franck Leibovici, Christophe Lemaitre, Naomi Lulendo, Diogo Maia, Benoît Maire, Robin Jiro Margerin, Léonard Martin, Michel-Ange, Olivier Mosset, Nils Norman, Yoshua Okón, Élisabeth Péleraux, G.T. Pellizzi, Philomène Pirecki, Polydore, Morgane Porcheron, Pablo Prieto, Eileen Quinlan, Marthe Ramm Fortun, Paul Richer, Martha Rosler, Tanguy Roussel, Clara Saracho de Almeida, Camille Sauer, Pierre Seiter, The V-Girls, Théophile Stern, Mladen Stilinović, Christelle Tea, Cheyney Thompson, Victor Vaysse, Ana Vega, Marta Wengorovius, Adolphe Zimmern, Mathieu Zurcher.

The Escape at Nouveau Festival, Centre Pompidou, Paris

rencontre dans l'exposition, mercredi 20 mai à 16 h

Stickers beings reviewed in Art in America by Linda Mai Green

April 2015

Nuages indexés at onestar press, Paris

onestar press is happy to announce Benoît Maire's presentation of Nuages indexés: a selection of paintings and sculptures on view starting April 17, 2015 alongside Maire's artist's book The Long Godbeye

Nuages indexés
In this moment I essentially create sculptures and paintings, which is to say, waste and clouds. I create films as well and sometimes an impression will inspire me to write text. I enjoy looking at furniture auctions online, above all I like chairs. Making tables occupies me a bit; I have one at the Palais de Tokyo upon which I have currently placed an apple. Sometimes, I place waste upon a chair, and my clouds are finished when a finger points to them as if viewed by a third party. "Nuages indexés" would be a possible title for this presentation, but there are also various wastes viewed upon the floor, just as a passerby would see while strolling upon a beach in April.

27 March 2015

Featured: Benoît Maire's Nuages Indexés , 2015 #5, oil on canvas, framed , 69 x 54 cm, signed on the back

L'île de la répétition at Kursaal, Besançon

18h30

Petit Kursaal 2, place du Théâtre - 25000 - Besançon

LETRE à MK2 Mademoiselle, Palais de Tokyo, Paris

Letre, HD video, 16 min, couleur

Some New Works in "l'usage des formes" at Palais de Tokyo, Paris

Curator Gallien Dejean

20/03/2015 - 17/05/2015

Some New Works at MOTinternational, Brussels

14 March – 11 April 2015, Brussels
PV 13 March, 6 – 9pm

Benoît Maire, Ulrike Müller, Anouchka Oler, Zin Taylor, Sue Tompkins

Letre in Sticker Beings at KIRIA KOULA, San Francisco

In Letre, Benoît Maire asks French philosophers François Laruelle and Anne-Françoise Schmid to observe a composition of objects the artist had placed on a table, on top of a map: an apple, a polished bronze head, things found on the beach, transparent cubes, dice, among others. The two thinkers speculate as to the meaning of the arrangement, which leads them to a broader reflection on the nature of decisions, art, and science.

The screening will be followed by a talk by San Francisco-based writer, artist, editor, and teacher Kristina Lee Podesva.

Letre, 2015
A short film by Benoît Maire
Saturday, March 7, 5:30pm

Ni...Ni: La Flaque (Neither...Nor: The Puddle)
A talk by Kristina Lee Podesva
Saturday, March 7, 5:45pm

REPETITION ISLAND at a.m., London

Benoit Maire - Repetition Island
4pm, February 28th, 2015

Soren Kierkegaard, John Keats, Emily Dickinson, and Thomas Chatterton exist on an island where their lives are repeating endlessly. They live several times across the film, and thus encounter each other at different ages, as well as in different combinations, using this variety to wonder philosophically on this life, this island.

The characters, drawn from Romanticism, are almost impossibly eloquent, playing poetically with their thoughts as they walk around the island. They muse on art and life, and in particular Cordelia, an 'idea' which Keats has become obsessed with.

Shot on film in a dreamlike summer, it includes Maire's own sculptural work threaded through its sequences. At 68 minutes it is his first long-form film and is here presented for the first time in the UK with English subtitles.

a.m

All Hallows Church (Entrance through double doors in public gardens)
10 Copperfield Street
Southwark
SE1 0EL

ONE WITH NO MEDIATION at LE FOYER, Zurich

Friday February 27th 2015 7.30 pm. Talk in English.

Benoît Maire (*1978, lives in Paris) in conversation with Daniel C. Barber (philosopher, fellow at the ICI Berlin, author of Deleuze and the Naming of God and On Diaspora, 2011)

The activities of French artist, philosopher and curator Benoît Maire are situated in between artistic research practices and philosophical considerations − transforming postmodern theory into possible concrete forms is part of his investigations. He often approaches the physical world with odd measuring instruments and small tools called weapons, or creates sculptural situations. Currently his work is part of the exhibition Unendliche Bibliothek at the Alte Fabrik Rapperswil (until March 29th).

At Le Foyer, Benôit Maire and philosopher Daniel C. Barber, whose current work is on the logic of conversion, will discuss the question What's a decision? in a performative setting. The artist's hybrid objects will function as mediating tools during the conversation, which will question his personal system of decided objects (from transformed materials) and waste (undecided pieces, residue from decisions, indexed by a word or a sticker), the distinction of an object from discard as well as the reuse of materials in a general sense. The discursive arrangement at Le Foyer might lead to a discussion, or perhaps end up in just a situation.

LE FOYER
Gioia Dal Molin & Anna Francke
Müllerstrasse 57 / 8004 Zürich

Musique pour un cheval centenaire, with Etienne Chambaud in AFTER DARK at MAMCO, Geneva

Curated by Xavier Franceschi

18 February- 10 May 2015

Erica Baum, Maurice Blaussyld, Alejandro Cesarco, Isabelle Cornaro, Haris Epaminonda, Elise Florenty/MarcelTürkowsky, Mark Geffriaud, João Maria Gusmão/Pedro Paiva, Benoit Maire/Etienne Chambaud, Ralph-Eugene Meatyard, Florence Paradeis, Tobias Rehberger, Jimmy Robert, Bojan Sarcevic, John Stezaker, Ulla von Brandenburg 

After Dark is a major event for the FRAC Ile-de-France, and also represents a first for the Mamco with this unusual invitation offered to another institution to come and present its collection within its walls. The project is part of the Museum's 20th anniversary celebrations. In an area-the museum's fourth floor-completely plunged in darkness, the exhibition presents a set of works which all share in common the fact that they give glimpses of certain forms of reality whose meaning tends irremediably to elude us. Be it a message written on a wall before being deliberately erased (Sans titre, Jimmy Robert), a series of flat wooden crates containing objects which we shall never have access to (Sans titre, Maurice Blaussyld), a group of people who will always be anonymous (Around, Ulla von Brandenburg), or a set of images visible only for a split second as they are swept by a beam of light (Polka Dot, Mark Geffriaud), what is regularly at issue is an approach, clues, and signs that are more than evocative, but which never totally reveal what they nevertheless seem to want to show us. These works seem to be telling us that the essence lies elsewhere. Not in the definitive resolution of a set of facts which will be transferred to us, but in the very enigma which is proposed to us each and every time. In this sense, the field is open to plenty of hallucinatory experiences which do not leave visitors unscathed: the soliloquy of a man exhorting us to share in his delirium (When I see You..., Elise Florenty/Marcel Türkowsky), a piano delivers a threnody whose origins are as precise as they are improbable (Musique pour un cheval centenaire, Benoît Maire/Etienne Chambaud), superpositions of various photographs create holes of a monstrous nature (Masks, John Stezaker), the memory of a public reading gives way to the vision of a dwelling filled with ghosts (The two Stories, Alejandro Cesarco). And if there are, in spite of everything, beliefs and decoys, the works of João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva- pastmasters in this art-draw us into dizzy-making duplications and mises en abyme... If a share of uncertainty and a certain obscurity seem necessary for an understanding of the world-Plato's cave is not far away-After Dark offers many blurred perspectives enabling us paradoxically to see a future where there is light. Somewhat like the work of Tobias Rehberger (Nicolai's Sunny 09.02.72 (Krylow), where the ultimate light perception of a man is revealed to us, and perpetuated.

LAUNCH OF DETOURS WHICH HAVE TO BE INVESTIGATED at Salon MOLLAT, Bordeaux

January 27, 5.30 pm

with a concert by Ivan Ilic

Letre in ARTE CRITICA 79

text by Paolo Emilio Antognoli

STICKER BEINGS at KIRIA KOULA, San Francisco

Curated by Juana Berrio

Friday, January 16–March 7, 2015

Opening Reception
January 16, 6:30–8:30pm

3148 22nd Street
San Francisco, CA
94110 USA

Kiria Koula is pleased to announce the opening of Benoît Maire's Exhibition and Bookstore

Benoît Maire presents an exhibition of new work titled Sticker Beings. His practice revolves around the interaction between objects, images, words, and philosophical ideas and how they might co-exist and transform over time. His process is one of collage, montage, or editing. His compositions are assemblages of different elements that he selects, organizes, condenses, modifies, and juxtaposes into one large scenario to which he prescribes an ongoing and performative life. To him, the point lies in the performance of an idea, rather than in any finite or resolved manifestation or result.
In the bookstore, Maire's research is mostly focused on his interest in the concept of "decision." He is particularly interested in how this notion historicized the concept of subject in the modern era, and he proposes an investigation that confronts the decision-making process of mathematical calculations with the one made by individual subjects who jump into decisions despite a lack of knowledge. For this, Maire presents his own visual and written materials, as well as existing and new contributions by philosophers, writers, art historians, and artists. Some of the contributors include Anne-Françoise Schmid, François Laruelle, Daniel Barber, and Liam Gillick, among others.

Kiria Koula is a gallery and bookstore located in the Mission District in San Francisco.

Wednesday–Saturday
11am–6pm
and by appointment

For more information, please contact us athello@kiriakoula.com or (415) 848–2489. 

HOLES IN PHILOSOPHY #1 in Unendliche Bibliothek at ALTEFABRIK Kunsthalle, Rapperswil

24. Januar bis 29. März 2015
Eröffnung: Donnerstag, 22. Januar, 19 Uhr

Alte Fabrik
Klaus-Gebert-Strasse 5
8640 Rapperswil-Jona

Öffnungszeiten Ausstellung:
Mi 12–18 Uhr / Sa–So 11–17 Uhr und auf Anfrage

Unendliche Bibliothek

Eine Gruppenausstellung, kuratiert von Alexandra Blättler

Unendliche Bibliothek - Eine Ausstellung zur Kunst des Lesens, ergänzt mit Künstlerbüchern und Einblicken in private Bibliotheken.

Die erste Ausstellung im Jahr 2015 widmet die Gebert Stiftung für Kultur den Phänomenen Bibliothek und Buch. Künstler verschiedener Epochen haben sich mit der Darstellung des «Studioso» auseinander gesetzt. Auch der Appenzeller Carl August Liner schuf Bilder von Lesenden, die in der Ausstellung zu sehen sein werden. Nicht nur der Wissenschaftler selber soll eine Rolle spielen, sondern auch der Ort seiner Arbeit, das «Studiolo», wird gezeigt. Seine Darstellung bereichert die Ausstellung in Form von Videoarbeiten, Auszügen aus kleineren und grösseren Privatbibliotheken, Künstlerbüchern und weiteren installativen Exponaten
zum Thema Lesen, Buch und Bibliothek.

Gezeigt werden Werke von BAS JAN ADER · SAÂDANE AFIF · STEFAN BURGER · NATALIE CZECH · LATIFA ECHAKHCH · MATTHIAS GABI · DANIEL KNORR
· SUSANNE KRIEMANN · ANOUK KRUITHOF · CARL AUGUST LINER · BENOÎT MAIRE · SOPHIE NYS · PAMELA ROSENKRANZ · LUIZ SCHUMACHER · VERONIKA SPIERENBURG · THE DOR · THE INFINITE LIBRARY (DANIEL GUSTAV CRAMER UND HARIS EPAMINONDA) · MARA TRUOG · KEVIN VAN BRAAK UND ROSSELLA BISCOTTI · CHRISTOPH WESTERMEIER

Launch of Benoit Maire's AESTHETICS OF DIFFERENDS, VOL. 2 at ROSASCAPE, Paris

Lancement du Vol. 2 de Esthétique des différends, Benoît Maire (2008- ) à l'occasion duquel le film A Lesson about Cats and Faults de Fabien Giraud et Benoît Maire (2014) sera projeté pour la première fois en France.

Esthétique des différends
Benoît Maire (2008- )

Esthétique des différends (projet entamé en 2008) est un livre d'artiste produit et édité par Rosascape qui documente la recherche en cours de Benoît Maire sur le « différend » - concept emprunté au philosophe Jean-François Lyotard. Le livre, produit en série limitée (25 exemplaires en français et 25 exemplaires en anglais) constitue une recherche philosophique, forgeant une esthétique faite d'imbrications de mots et d'images, de déchets et d'outils, d'introductions et de suspensions.

La première séquence éditée en 2011 était conduite par l'exploration de "L'ontologie de l'il y a», la deuxième séquence (2014) termine ce premier chapitre et ouvre «L'objet de la critique».

A Lesson about Cats and Faults
Fabien Giraud et Benoît Maire (2014)

Pour cette première collaboration, Fabien Giraud et Benoît Maire explorent et donnent forme à travers un film à leur récentes recherches en lien avec la topologie et la théorie de la décision. Ce film d'animation réalisé en image de synthèse par Ruben Cohen, met en scène deux voix coréennes, celles d'un homme et d'une femme, et se déroule en suivant les mouvements d'une caméra subjective qui nous fait plonger dans une narration à travers laquelle se joue la perception erronée d'une discontinuité.

«la fille analytique, qui susurre: Il y a plusieurs choses suspendues dans un «Je sais»: des objets et des ombres, notamment.
Les objets qui tombent ont donné une chute comme seul repère, soudain, des ombres sont mal tombées aussi.
Les ombres ne restaient pas fixes, pourtant aucun soleils ne les éclairait.
Les choses ont transportée leur nuit, et un chat changeant de dimension les coupait alors, il nous montrait leur tranche coupée.
Leur tranche coupée: un semblant pour épater les enfants.
Il y avait une faille, j'ai pensé «il y a un bord», puis tombait un pont sur le bord, seulement plus loin le revers de la faille s'écroulait en montagne.
Nul bord.
Des objets qui tombaient, je les ramassais comme des modèles faits avec de la nuit. Des modèles pour des chats alors, à couper encore, sans que nul bord ne viennent border le bord.»

Contact et informations:

Rosascape

99 rue du Faubourg du Temple
75010 Paris
Tel. +33 1 82 09 78 02

Alexandra Baudelot : Directrice artistique
alexandra.baudelot@rosascape.com

NEW RELEASE Benoit Maire's Critique de la mesure in POURPARLERS Deleuze entre art et philosophie

collective, ed.  

Collateral Event in SOLEIL POLITIQUE – Exhibition as a film - at MUSEION, Bolzano

The five artists featured in the video programme of Soleil Politique – Mauricio Guillén, Benoȋt Maire, Rä di Martino, Marie Voignier and Clemens von Wedemeyer – will be discussing strategies of resistance in the film and art industry, and independent forms of creation and production, forging a dialogue with historic examples and past generations, such as that of Silvano Agosti.

04/12/2014 8.00 p.m. Passage/4th floor, 9.30 p.m. projection of Rä di Martino's "The Show Mas Go On"

New Works in ERNESTO at CEEAC, Strasbourg

Curated by Élodie Royer & Yoann Gourmel

with David Douard, Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub, Ana Jotta, Guillaume Leblon, Benoît Maire, Nicolás Paris, Dominique Petitgand 

Preview date : 28 Novembre 2014
Opening date : 29 Novembre 2014
Close date : 15 Février 2014

That knowledge was also the wind,
both the one rushing down the highway
and the one flowing through the mind.

Marguerite Duras, Summer Rain, 1990

... Played by Axel Bogousslavsky in the film The Children, which she shot in 1984, Ernesto is seven but looks like a forty-year-old. 

... Much adapted for stage and screen, Ernesto has been illustrated, incarnated and morphed, but remains uncategorizable. Ernesto is a material, a source of invention, a usage, a cloud.

... Ernesto is a garden that is a tree on the corner of rue Berlioz in Vitry. Ernesto is a picture of this tree whose branches are not stirred by the wind anymore. 

Ernesto is a screen on which is projected only the memory of a spring rain or the joy of the sad.

...Ernesto is a translation, a passage from one medium to another, from one discipline to another, a prism, a hole in an encyclopedia of philosophy.

...Ernesto is not an issue, much less a demonstration. Ernesto is a voice. A silence. A word which can no longer be understood. 

...

Le concept de Cordélia at Centre Pompidou Paris

FEATURE Benoît Maire in L'Insolent Magazine : "the conjugation of objects and beings"

by Pierre-Antoine Lalande

 An upside-down statue's head, surreal remnants and enigmatic videos... Benoît Maire's work is diverse and fragmentary. This artist, trained in the fine arts as well as in philosophy, examines the issues related to decision making and difference. Drawing from theory, he questions the notion of structure, always inventive and complex, and reconciles words and forms.

Detours which have to be investigated at MAMCO Geneva

Lancement de Detours Which Have To Be Investigated, un livre d'art, un CD, un DVD, produit par la HEAD - Genève

A l'occasion du concert de Ivan Ilic au Mamco,
le Musée d'art moderne et contemporain de Genève

Crooked Paths, Ivan Ilic au piano,
Mercredi 12 novembre 2014 à 18h30
Mamco, rez-de-chaussée

Œuvres de John Cage, Erik Satie, Morton Feldman
Projections vidéo

La HEAD - Genève est fière de présenter Detours Which Have To Be Investigated un nouveau livre d'art, accompagné d'un CD et d'un DVD, né de la collaboration entre l'artiste français Benoît Maire, le pianiste américain Ivan Ilic et les étudiant-e-s Master du Département des Arts visuels. Il présente des photographies et des textes de Morton Feldman, de Philip Guston et de John Cage, et un nouveau texte de Ivan Ilic en collaboration avec Benoît Maire. Deux vidéos inédites de Ştefan Botez, un documentaire de courte durée sur la musique de Morton Feldman, un nouvel enregistrement de Palais de Mari de Morton Feldman (1986), interprété par Ivan Ilic, composent cette publication.

Detours Which Have To Be Investigated est le résultat de l'atelier Master mené par Benoît Maire intitulé "Silenzio". En janvier 2013, l'artiste Benoît Maire invite le pianiste Ivan Ilic à Genève pour présenter ses travaux de recherche sur Morton Feldman. C'est une révélation pour les étudiant-e-s Master. Au cours de la semaine suivante, ils produisent deux vidéos : l'une est de Ştefan Botez, l'autre, une vidéo de groupe est un documentaire expérimental, avec des images rares de Morton Feldman datant de 1986.

Sandra Mudronja, responsable, communication & relations extérieures

T +41 22 388 51 19, sandra.mudronja@hesge.ch

ITW sur Letre, ARTE CREATIVE TV

Benoît Maire se dit volontiers amateur dans la création de formes. Artiste touche-à-tout, il s'adonne aussi bien à la peinture qu'à la sculpture, à la manipulation d'objets glanés qu'à la vidéo sans jamais réellement se spécialiser ni développer d'expertise du faire. Au contraire, plutôt que chercher une perfection formelle, ses oeuvres peuplent un univers construit par le discours philosophique dans lequel il voit sa matière première. Dans le titre de l'exposition « LETRE » à laquelle il nous convie, Benoît Maire interroge justement les notions d'apparition, de donné à voir et d'existence de l'objet, dans un espace mais aussi dans une pratique artistique. Ces dizaines d'objets déployés construisent et documentent la création d'un corpus. On y trouve aussi bien les résultats du processus artistique – les oeuvres – que des éléments constitutifs du processus même qu'il nomme des déchets. Ils ont été écartés du processus à mesure des décisions que l'artiste a prises dans la mise en oeuvre de son projet. Ces déchets se trouvent affublés de petits mots qui participent à leur indexation et à leur identification. EB

Collaborative Works

Benoît Maire and Falke Pisano

edited by Manucius, Paris

Text of a discussion held at Université Paris 13 under the direction of Celine Flecheux and Magali Nachtergael

Letre in 02 magazine

text by Patrice Joly

Some WASTES in LE MUSÉE D'UNE NUIT (Script for Leaving Traces)

Curated by Vincent HONORÉ / DRAF LONDON

Opening October the 20th 

Fondation Hippocrène
12 rue Mallet-Stevens
75016 Paris

Tél : 01 45 20 95 94
Accès :  M° Ranelagh ou Jasmin, ligne 9 /  Bus 22

from tuesday till saturday 2pm - 7 pm
free admission

Paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures, installations and films by modern artists such as Man Ray or Tamara de Lempicka, and contemporary figures including Nina Beier and Marie Lund, Yto Barrada, Martin Boyce, Enrico David, Michael Dean, Ayan Farah, Lito S. Freeman, Bethan Huws, Pierre Huyghe, Sergej Jensen, Renaud Jerez, Sarah Lucas, Benoît Maire, Marlie Mul and Rosemarie Trockel take over the former architectural practice, built in 1927 by Robert Mallet-Stevens and now the headquarters of the Fondation Hippocrène.

“Every building created by Robert Mallet-Stevens looks like one of his film sets, and the people in it are like actors. Like film sets, Mallet-Stevens' buildings proceed by indications (base, window, chimney, etc., defined simply, just enough to be recognisable) and act by suggestion, putting the onus on the beholder to recreate the totality using the fragments with which they are provided." writes architectural historian Fernando Montes.

This exhibition is articulated in relation to its context, and to the twofold figures of the architect and collector. To present a collection is implicitly to paint a portrait of the person who created it. This makes us think of a collection not in terms of a process of accumulation but as a fundamental dynamics of loss. To exhibit works in a Mallet-Stevens building is to inhabit a memory of architecture and the sets of silent films (Mallet-Stevens started his career building sets, notably for the filmmaker Marcel L'Herbier).

Letre in (H)ART

text by Adrien Coster

Letre in Le Quotidien de l'Art

text by Cédric Aurelle

Spiaggia in SOLEIL POLITIQUE at MUSEION, BOLZANO

The museum between light and shadow

Curated by Pierre Bal-Blanc

What role does Museion play with regard to its historic and social setting, and in terms of its architecture and the city? To examine these questions Pierre Bal-Blanc engages powerfully with the venue and its daily activities, as well as other sites in Bolzano. The exhibition, inspired by Pier Paolo Pasolini's documentary The Form of the City, also presents works from national and international public and private collections, as well as a series of site-specific pieces.

Opening: 26/09/2014, 7 p.m.
27/09/14 – 11/01/2015

Letre in Les inrocks

text by Claire Moulène

Letre in Libération

Text by Marie Ottavi

Some WASTES in L'EXPOSITION D'UN FILM

Curated by Mathieu Copeland

Image en Mouvement 2014
Auditorium Arditi Wilsdorf
1205 Genève
vendredi 19 septembre à 20:30

with Mac Adams, Fia Backström, Robert Barry, Erica Baum, Stuart Brisley, Jonathan Burrows, Nick Cave, David Cunningham, Philippe Decrauzat, Peter Downsbrough, Maria Eichhorn, F.M. Einheit, Tim Etchells, Alexandre Estrela, John Giorno, Sam Gleaves, Kenneth Goldsmith, Myriam Gourfink, Karl Holmqvist, Marie-Caroline Hominal, Myriam Lefkowitz, Franck Leibovici, Benoît Maire, Charles De Meaux, Karen Mirza & Brad Butler, Ieva Misevičiūtė, Meredith Monk, Charlotte Moth, Phill Niblock, Deborah Pearson, Vanessa Place, Michael Portnoy, Lee Ranaldo, Lætitia Sadier, Laurent Schmid, Leah Singer, Mieko Shiomi, Susan Stenger, Sofia Diaz + Vítor Roriz, Kasper T. Toeplitz, Daniel Turner, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Alan Vega, Lawrence Weiner

THE ESCAPE at SONGEUN SEOUL

Me and You in a Living Room :
Artists from the Ricard Foundation Award
2014. 9. 18 - 11. 29

Guest Curator
Marie Canet

In September 2014, SongEun ArtSpace will present an exhibition titled Me and You in a Living Room : Artists from the Ricard Foundation Award, featuring eight promising young French artists selected amoung the past Ricard Awardees. The works featured in the exhibition are indicative of the way in which France's artistic life has addressed facts and values, with a focus on the meaning of the art award and its role in the contemporary art scene.

Since 1999, the Ricard Foundation has annually awarded a young and talented French artist with the Ricard Foundation Award, in support of the contemporary art scene in France. To date, there are a total sixteen awardees whose works have been placed in the permanent collection of the Pompidou Museum. This presentation of the Ricard Foundation and its artists is the first in Korea, and it serves as a prelude to the upcoming extensive cultural exchange between France and Korea.

With works by Christophe Berdaguer and Marie Péjus, Mircea Cantor, Isabelle Cornaro, Natacha Lesueur, Benoît Maire, Adrian Missika, Lili Reynaud Dewar, Tatiana Trouvé

LETRE at La Verrière Hermès, BRUSSELS

Curated by Guillaume Désanges

Letre is a unique installation by Benoit Maire for La Verrière. It is an archipelago of sculptural situations made of what he describes as «decided objects» (materials transformed by the artist) and «waste» (the residue from decisions made on certain objects).Each piece of waste, which is thus «undecided», is indexed by a word or a sticker.

Letre is a reflection in actions on the decision, qualification and designation of objects, a play on the French words «l'être» (a being) and «la lettre» (a letter). Can a piece of waste be an object? When does a situation crystallise to become a work of art? What choice governs whether to keep an object or throw it away? What is the relationship between a painter's canvas and his palette?

The exhibition offers a horizontal «safeguarding» approach to these essential questions, based on a principle of equality or non-hierarchy between the location of the art and its opposite. In doing so, it draws a landscape of sliding meanings, to be explored, resulting in an interaction between chance, intention and intuition, in something as programmed as it is poetic.

ARTSONJE, SEOUL

LETTER at Western Front, Vancouver

LETTER by Benoît Maire

May 21 – Jun 28, 2014 / Opening May 20 @ 7:00pm
French artist Benoît Maire works with film, sculpture and photography, setting materials in dialogue with linguistics and philosophy. Informed by conceptual art practices, Maire brings a material sensibility that draws out an object's potential to affect, while maintaining an aesthetics of ideas. Poetic systems of display reframe artifacts of observation as objects of study and interrogation. On the occasion of this project, Maire will also launch a new limited edition artist book, printed in France by One Star Press. LETTER is Maire's first solo exhibition in Canada.

Benoît Maire (b. 1978, Paris) has presented works at the Luma Foundation, Arles; I.C.A.,London; Magasin, Grenoble; Tate Modern, London; and Centre Pompidou, Paris. He is represented in London by Hollybush Gardens, in France by Cortex Athletico, and in Berlin by Croy Nielsen.

Presented with the generous support of the Consulat général de France à Vancouver.

FUTURE GREATS, by LIAM GILLICK in ArtReview

Future Greats
Benoît Maire

Within a context where there are many tedious clichés about how bad things are – how shallow and useless art has become – Benoît Maire seems to have no place. And he is not alone in this nowhere. It is possible that he has no place because his work is geared to escape any given contemporary locale. He operates in relation to the history of ideas and a quizzical recasting of philosophy. Maire does not do this in order to create a pedagogical practice where the artist is reduced to giving amusingly subjective lectures within an academic context. Maire's relationship to philosophy operates in terms of ideas as material. Asking how ideas find material form and how ideas can be used as a way to measure ideas in context. Constantly moving to and fro between measuring, checking and recasting concepts into material form and back again. There is a constant too and fro here between states of consideration and application.

It is always too early or too late to decide what might constitute a future anything let alone a future great. It might be better to think about someone who deals with great ideas. Moving recently away from art as a form with which to measure ideas – Maire is moving into a set of works that involve the development of a new language of images. Images functioning in relation to each other. A step away from the abstraction of language as a series of marks towards consideration of ideas as a set of interrelated images.

There remains no consolidation of form and content here but no rejection of it either. There is no stability here. There is a strong obligation on the viewer to use the work – but no instruction manual. The work is more of a codex. A transition from scroll to book. The future greatness here is the ability to find forms that function as codices. Taking ideas and recasting them into transitional mode. Operating between ideas. Continuing regardless. Building up a sequence of works that are restless.

Liam Gillick

beings at Hollybush Gardens

Benoît Maire's Aesthetics of Differends, fragmented in 21 ST CENTURY THEORY-SPIKE MAGAZINE

The fourth part of our »21st Century Theory« series, which up to this point has been dedicated to Speculative Realism, continues the discussion on the status of objects in current thought and contemporary art with a deliberation by French artist Benoît Maire.

To Maire, the revolutionary shift of Speculative Realism is that it takes the relativist aspect of thought that was so problematic in the 80s, as a point of departure: the absence of the absolute as an absolute.

Maire treats theory as an artistic medium – an image or object can become a concept, and likewise a text can be read like an image. Theory is an object among other objects, rather than as a meta-object that transforms objects into knowledge. He attempts to give thought a general shape, to systemize it. But the affects accompanying thought resist this systemization, and thus, his work takes a fragmented form. It is a »confused voice«, as the ancients say, that comes forth in Benoît Maire's texts, videos, paintings and performances, whose innermost logic is a lack of articulation. 

spike

Who's talking?

The Witness:

Mater Dolorosa:

One who drinks 8,6% lager:

The Heir:

The Woman who says what she thinks:

The Parricide:

The Child of a Whore: