Carte grise
Carte blanche
LocationENSAD Nancy
1 place Cartier Bresson
54000 Nancy
Dates
December 2023
January 2024
Photo creditsJeanne Maugenre
ArtistsBaptiste Thiebaut Jacquel, Marvin Lad, Jeanne Maugenre, Chloé Mufraggi, Gauvain Pedoni, Nathan Riquet, Salomé Rzepecki, Nan Zhang
Statement
In art school, life is punctuated by assignments in response to a set of instructions. This is generally an opportunity for students to explore new practices or consolidate existing ones. The instructions take on the role of constraints that need to be overcome in order to explore the visual arts in greater depth. When they leave school, these exercises become known as ‘open calls’ or ‘brief’, with increasingly complex rules and obligations. The aim remains the same: to free oneself from a rigid context in order to generate a unique system of thought, form and aesthetic. Many projects are conceived according to a precise protocol, but if they are not selected, they will have little chance of coming to fruition for obvious reasons of space, time, budget or skills.
But is that any reason to put them away in a drawer, out of sight? In 2006, a group of curators led by Hans-Ulrich Obrist set up the Agency of Unrealized Projects to collect as many unfinished manuals of stillborn works as possible. In this agency, these compiled projects have no other horizon than to be frozen at the stage of hypothesis. Yet there are a multitude of ways to bring an idea to life. Time, financial and technical constraints are often imaginary blinkers placed on the skulls of those who rush headlong into a single direction, without looking at all the others open to them. To break down these mental barriers, it can take many years to achieve a new balance, to carry out preparatory research brimming over with repentance, and to engage in endless discussions that are as fascinating as they are stimulating.
‘Carte grise, carte blanche’ was born of the desire to produce an exhibition made up of liberated and liberating constraints. 4th and 5th year students were invited to write down on a sheet of paper any information they might find useful about a project they had not been able to complete. The scribbled sheets were then thrown into a bag and randomly picked by the same group of students. Each student was given an unfinished project by one of their classmates, with the aim of realising it. The aim was not to reproduce as it stood the lost thought of a fellow student, but rather to take advantage of a new perspective, a different practice or simply a re-imagined context to produce something new. In this way, everyone became one of those ‘laboratory rats who have to construct the labyrinth from which they propose to emerge’, as Raymond Queneau, one of the founding members of OuLiPo, put it.
So what should we do with these newly produced works? An exhibition is still the most appropriate format, but for a project like this, the white cube is a resplendent bore. It was quickly agreed that it was necessary to extract ourselves from it. However, it was imperative that the school administration could accept this emancipation, ruling out any urban escapade. This new constraint led to the idea of exploring a part of the school that was still largely unexplored by students: the car park. It's not possible to invite the public there? Whatever, a closed exhibition will be organised before being documented. The exhibition will take place in the pages of a publication, in this case the one you are holding in your hands. An exhibition that can be visited by as many people as possible, at any time of day.
And why limit ourselves to a single exhibition? So the students, working alone or in pairs, created 6 displays in the most intuitive way possible. Each of these combinations was documented in photos. These run through the pages that follow. The works produced, as well as the protocol sheets of paper, can also be found throughout the pages of this edition. A brief paragraph written by the students on their feelings about this project and another presenting their research can also be read on the pages to come.
Certainly, every work, every exhibition, every project is a succession of more or less explicit constraints, which then materialise in a never-ending litany of technical complications. ‘Carte grise, carte blanche’, however, was a departure from this precept. The extreme motivation of the students, their strong mutual affinity and their ability to follow their instincts were undoubtedly no strangers to this success. In 5 days over the course of two months, they managed to write protocols, use them to produce new works, hang them together, take photos of them, lay out, print and shape over 80 editions at the school's workshops. These 5 days were intense and overflowing! A succession of sparks, like so many buzzes from a polyphonic beehive, an innovative emulation was activated by the team, in an economy of means, resources and scales, reminding us that there is always a possibility to be creative when one has an idea.