4th edition of Ateliers de Rennes

PLAY TIME

September, 27 – November, 30, 2014

Artistic director: Zoë Gray

Mixing emerging and renowned artists, existing works and new productions, the Ateliers de Rennes will take place in established arts venues in the city of Rennes (FRAC Bretagne, Museum of Fine Arts) and in a former artillery warehouse in an area currently undergoing extensive transformation, the Halle de la Courrouze. The biennial additionally brings together a network of arts venues and partners in Rennes and across Brittany, to create a major contemporary art event in the region for the autumn of 2014.

The artistic theme:

In our work-oriented culture, especially in the protestant north, we have been told since the Middle Ages that idle hands are morally suspect. Since the Industrial Revolution, our hitherto self-organized manner of working – and playing – has been standardized, made to fit the factory whistle and the office clock. What has this done to our understanding of play time?

Appropriating the title of Jacques Tati’s most famous commercial flop, the critically revered film Play Time (1967), the biennial takes a Hulotesque stroll through the field of contemporary artistic practice. It does not seek to reproduce the aesthetics or storyline of the film, but uses the Hulot character as a metaphor for the artist, someone who does not fit the coded systems of work, but embodies an alternative pace and approach to most “workers” in our capitalist world.

The biennial PLAY TIME explores the exhibition simultaneously as a playground and a place of work. The title highlights its temporary nature, a space and time of possibility, in which artists and audience can play together.

Artists as of January 2014 – list in progress

Michael Beutler (Germany), Cosima von Bonin (Kenya), François Curlet (France), Sam Curtis (UK), Dewar & Gicquel (UK and France), Jimmie Durham (USA), Priscila Fernandes (Portugal), Robert Filliou (France), Fucking Good Art (Netherlands), Ane Hjort Guttu (Norway), Gergely László (Hungary), Erik van Lieshout (Netherlands), Maider López (Spain), Gareth Moore (Canada), Oscar Murillo (Colombia), Rivane Neuenschwander & Cao Guimarães (Brazil), Bruno Peinado (France), Hans Schabus (Austria), Pilvi Takala (Finland), Jay Tan (UK), Koki Tanaka (Japan), Thomas Tudoux (France).

The artistic director:

Zoë Gray (UK) is and independent exhibition curator. She lives in Brussels, Belgium. She studied History of Art (BA Hons) at the University of Cambridge and completed the Masters in Curating at Goldsmiths College, University of London.

Her latter works include:

• Wilfrid Almendra : Matériologique , Fondation d’entreprise Ricard, Paris, France (2013) ;
• Six Possibilites for a Sculpture , La Loge, Brussels, Belgium (2013) ;
• Alexandre da Cunha , Le Grand Café, Saint-Nazaire, France (2012) (co-curator with Sophie Legrandjacques)
• Manufacture , Centre PasquArt, Bienne, Switzerland (2012), John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, UK (2011) and Parc Saint Léger, Pougues-les-Eaux, France (2011) (co-curator with Sandra Patron)
• Making is Thinking  at Witte de With, Rotterdam, Netherlands, where she worked from 2006 to 2012.
• Outside of Witte de With, past curatorial projects include Cyprien Gaillard’s Beton Belvédère , Stroom, The Hague, Netherlands (2009).

Zoë Gray is also vice president of IKT (International association of curators of contemporary art).

Photo: Zoë Gray, Courtesy Ateliers de Rennes