FRED FOREST " The conversation " MoMA 20 septembre 2011

PERFORMANCE INTERDITE AU MoMA
NY 23 sept 2011

The temporary occupation of space to confront powerful institutions has been on my mind as the Occupy Wall Street movement stretches into its tenth day and as I learn of MoMA’s prohibition of Fred Forest’s work “Oeuvre Invisible” last Friday, September 23, and the creation of a new work “The Conversation.” While undoubtedly different in the violence, scale, and media coverage of the events, Occupy Wall Street and Oeuvre Invisible draw attention to the inequalities and machinations of the market through the temporary and insurrectionary claiming of space.

The protestors at Wall Street condemn the increasing concentration of wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer people and the precarious existence of the other 99%. They have set up camp in Zucotti Park, and a patchwork network of sleeping pads, hand-written signs, and strewn belongings demarcate the space as communal. The ad-hoc aesthetics seem to visualize the very precariousness. In a recent note on the Occupy Wall Street website, Noam Chomsky writes, “They [Wall Street] also carry out these ugly activities with almost complete impunity—not too big to fail, but also ‘too big to jail.’” The protestors, on the other hand, are too small not to jail, and police have responded, arresting (as well as pepper spraying and beating) about 100 protestors. But the sentiments of an outraged population cannot be extinguished.

Fred Forest’s original project consisted of demarcating a square meter through measurement and then occupying this space through ultra-sonic sound emitters, and he had planned to insert this temporary, invisible piece throughout the MoMA. The work was an homage to Pierre Restany, the French art critics and longtime support of Forest, and relates to a series of actions dating back to at least 1977, when Forest purchased land at the border of France and Switzerland and sought to re-sell the “Artistic Square Meter” of property as an illustration of speculation in the art market. In recent years, Forest has written a theory of the “invisible-system-work,” suggesting that works of art will become immaterial force fields of relations. The project for the MoMA was therefore an insurrectionary insertion of an invisible work, which the museum immediately prohibited. Upon arriving with his group of volunteers at 4pm, Forest was greeted by three security agents who prohibited any performance and threatened to call the NY police. A twenty-minute conversation (documentation by Biennale Project) between Forest and the guards ensued about freedom of expression within the museum, but the MoMA only exhibits acquired or borrowed works, that is works that have already participated in the market being protested sixty blocks further south. After being trailed by security guards until leaving the building and area, Forest declared the creation of a new work “The Conversation.”

FRED FOREST / CENTRE D'ART D'ALBI FRANCE

FRED FOREST / CENTRE D

PARTICIPATION

http://www.flux-et-reflux.net

28/05/2011
FRED FOREST

Fred Forest
Ebb and Flow, the Internet cave

From Friday 1 July 2011 to Sunday 30 October 2011
Opening: 1 July at 6.30 pm at Les Moulins

In the 1970s, as a pioneer of video art, and media and network art, Fred Forest, who was born in 1933, ushered in the concept of sociological art. Then in the 1980s he initiated the concept of the aesthetics of communication. The ethical and aesthetic dimensions join together to put the human factor at the heart of his approach, especially through the involvement of different kinds of public in his works.

His project for Les Moulins Albigeois questions Plato’s cave in the Internet age. The shadows in Plato’s allegory are transposed in contemporary forms, by a
staged presentation of the public strolling about accompanied by their shadows, with texts and
video projections operating alternately. Other shadows and participations arrive through the
network of Internet connections in the world.

To participate, meeting on the website :
http://www.flux-et-reflux.net

A connection kit, in the form of a minimal recording studio and a user’s manual is proposed to the 120 French Institutes throughout the world, in conjunction with the French Institute in Paris, as well as other venues, such as the Fred Forest exhibitions currently on view in New York and Sao Paulo. A twofold network is thus activated, by the physical presence of the visitors in the exhibition at Les Moulins and by the virtual presence of connected publics.

Fred Forest is at work on a gigantic worldwide network, whose virtual and real participants give shape to the show, connection by connection. The artist has devised his project like a screenplay whose participating casts make the film by constantly renewing it. This collective work is a metaphor of a democratic dynamic. A journey like an initiatory plunge into the belly of a society hallmarked by information.

Manuela Manzini, associated artist, set design
Pascal Joube, associate artist, computer technology
Christian Valézy, associate artist, sound and image

Curator: Jackie-Ruth Meyer

Moulins Albigeois – 41 rue Porta – 81000 Albi. (France)
Open from Wednesday to Sunday from 2-7 pm. Closed on Monday, Tuesday and holidays.
www.centredartlelait.com

Press contact :
Murielle Edet – murielle.edet@centredartlelait.com / 0033 (9) 63 03 98 84 - 0033 (6) 72 82