“À Cris Ouverts”– title of the 6th edition of Les Ateliers de Rennes – Contemporary Art Biennale—sounds to the ear “or says” other than it reads: ‘with wide open screams / or crisis / or verse / or green’. It aims to reflect on different ways of being by opening up and enacting distinct paths, not only through dissonance but also through contestation (and sometimes) through the break of meaning that happens with the embracing of the unknown.

Rather than having recourse to a structure where artworks should de facto fit into themes, the two appointed curators of this 6th edition—Étienne Bernard, Director of Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain, Brest, and Céline Kopp, Director of Triangle France, Marseille—intend to present a plurality of artistic practices that operate in the break of the systems that rule our contemporary societies.

To this end, this Biennale project aims to gather about thirty international artists who have been shaping different ways to inhabit the world, and who are reflecting on distinct imaginaries of a collective whole. The exhibitions will show large bodies of work and new commissions specifically produced for the occasion.

Keeping with the investigations carried out by the Biennale’s previous editions on the links between art and economy, the participating artists of this 6th edition are looking beyond the established principles of domestication in which the subordination and management of other subjectivities –human, non–human or post–human– have imposed themselves as the only way to secure value and inhabit the social and natural world.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS

Terry Adkins (1953, Washington–2014, New York)
John Akomfrah (1957, GHANA; lives and works in London)
Oreet Ashery (1966, ISRAEL; lives and works in London)
Jean-Marc Ballée (1966, FRANCE; lives and works in Paris)
Richard Baquié (1952, Marseille–1996, Marseille)
Julie Béna (1982, FRANCE; lives and works in Prague)
Meriem Bennani (1988, MOROCCO; lives and works in New York)
Raymond Boisjoly (1981, CANADA (HAIDA NATION); lives and works in Vancouver)
Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz (1972, SWITZERLAND / 1963, GERMANY; live and work in Berlin)
Sonia Boyce (1962, UNITED-KINGDOM; lives and works in London)
Madison Bycroft (1987, AUSTRALIA; lives and works in Rotterdam and Paris)
Volmir Cordeiro (1987, BRAZIL; lives and works in Paris)
Julien Creuzet (1986, FRANCE; lives and works in Paris)
Jesse Darling (1988, UNITED-KINGDOM; lives and works in London)
Enrico David (1966, ITALY; lives and works in London)
Virgile Fraisse (1990, FRANCE; lives and works in Paris)
Kudzanai-Violet Hwami (1993, ZIMBABWE; lives and works in London)
Katia Kameli (1973, FRANCE; lives and works in Paris)
Corita Kent (1918, Fort Dodge–1986, Boston)
Yves Laloy (1920, Rennes–1999, Cancale)
Anne Le Troter (1985, FRANCE; lives and works in Paris)
Basim Magdy (1977, EGYPT; lives and works in Basel)
Paul Maheke (1985, FRANCE; lives and works in London)
Senga Nengudi (1943, USA; lives and works in Colorado Springs)
Sondra Perry (1986, USA; lives and works in à New York)
Jean-Charles de Quillacq (1979, FRANCE; lives and works in Zurich)
Kenzi Shiokava (1938, BRAZIL; lives and works in Los Angeles)
Wu Tsang (1982, USA; lives and works in Los Angeles)
Mierle Laderman Ukeles (1939, USA; Lives and works in New York and Tel Aviv)
Erika Vogt (1973, USA; lives and works in Los Angeles)
Dan Walwin (1986, UNITED KINGDOM; lives and works in Amsterdam)

THE CURATORS

Etienne Bernard has been the director of Passerelle Center d’art contemporain in Brest since 2013, where he has curated the first solo exhibitions in France of Fredrik Vaerslev, Goldschmied & Chiari, Koki Tanaka, Laëtitia Badaut Haussmann, Laura Aldridge or Ming Wong. From 2015 to 2017 he was President of d.c.a – the national network of French art centers. He has previously directed the International Festival of Poster and Graphic Design in Chaumont and an exhibition program at the CAPC Museum of Contemporary Art in Bordeaux (2007-2009). From 2010 to 2013, he set up and coordinated Fieldwork: Marfa a research and residency program in Marfa, Texas. From 2013 to 2015, he was a member of the acquisition committee of the National Contemporary Art Fund (FNAC) and joined the FRAC Bretagne committee in 2016.
As an art critic, he has been collaborating to French magazines Archistorm or 02 and published in numerous books (Cura books, Les Presses du Réel, Exit, etc.). As an freelance curator, he has led various projects in institutions in France and abroad, notably at Krabbesholm Højskole au Danemark, Parc-Saint-Léger, Pougues-les-Eaux, Musée de l’Objet,Blois and JAUS Art Space in Los Angeles.

Céline Kopp has held, since 2012, the position of Director of Triangle France, a nonprofit contemporary art organization in Marseille. In this capacity, she recently curated Liz Magor’s first European solo exhibition, as well as Erika Vogt’s and the first French exhibition of Chicano artist group ASCO. She has recently commissioned and, or, produced new works from artists such as Charles Atlas, Eva Barto, Jean-Alain Corre, Margaret Honda, Cally Spooner and Laure Prouvost, among others.

Previously, as an independent curator, she developed projects centered on research and production using the format of residencies as a research tool (including a long term project in the American South started in Memphis TN in 2009). In 2008 she was Marjorie Susman Curatorial Fellow at the Museum of Contemporay Art in Chicago, and in 2006 and 2007 she was curator of ART2102 in Los Angeles. She has written on contemporary art for magazines such as Artpress, Cura, Domus, Uovo, 02, and contributed to publications by Phaidon, Mousse Publishings, Onomatopee, etc. She is currently working on two publications: with Andrea Büttner for Koenig Books, following the artist’s first solo exhibition in France that she curated at Mrac Occitanie, and a publication on ASCO with the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center (CSRC).