Amelie Chabannes: Artist Profile by: Maceo Bishop
Artist profile of Amelie Chabannes and her work leading up to and during the installation of her project Double Portrait and the Fourth Hand at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, CT, USA.
Directed and Produced by: Maceo Bishop
Amelie Chabannes, artiste Interview
Interesting article on Amelie Chabannes by Elody Chappuyon from A Graphic Life
Faisons de nouveau la promotion d’une artiste française qui vit à l’étranger. Formée à l’ENSAD, Amélie Chabannes est installée à Brooklyn en 2003. Elle expose régulièrement en France quoi qu’il arrive (Fiac, Galerie Hussenot, La Hune Gallery…). Ses thématiques artistiques sont, sans aucun doute, liées en partie à son histoire personnelle et de ses connexions, déconnexions entre plusieurs pays.
Amélie Chabannes Intimate Immensity and Lagerstatten
As part of the critically acclaimed Crossing the Line Festival 2011, Amelie Chabannes will be performing LIVE both in person and streamed over the net.
The Wall Street Journal recently interviewed Amelie about her latest piece:
“Master Plaster Blaster” – Amelie Chabannes – Crossing the Line Festival Article
WALL STREET JOURNAL
By LIZZIE SIMON… “Sugar, spice and everything nice” might be what little girls are made of, but grown women have a few more ingredients to add. This is true for artist Amelie Chabannes, who this summer amassed a wide range of objects and images to represent the depth of her identity. She then encased them in plaster so that she could excavate, explore and explode them live at the French Institute Alliance Française from Oct. 12-16 in her performance installation, “Intimate, Immensity and Lagerstatten.”
The term “Lagerstatten” refers to a territory rich in well-preserved fossils, and Ms. Chabannes wants “immensity” to feel both like a staged archeological dig and like “entering a being”.
The initial idea for the piece came to the Paris-born, Brooklyn-based artist after she stumbled upon a metaphor about the self as a building in Gaston Bachelard’s “Poetics of Space,” a book she is “bananas for,” she said. “I’ve read it again and again for 15 years. Everything started from that.”
For traditional galleries, this is a challenging piece. For starters, there’s nothing to sell. But FIAF’s Crossing the Line festival, which often supports genre and commerce-defying work, encouraged her mission to “get out of this classical thing of making art in the studio and then showing it.”
Ms. Chabannes will be uncovering herself each day from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Given the kind of energy self-exploration requires, we wondered about lunch, and she said she’d be taking 15-minute breaks.
But don’t the French disdain rushed meals? “Totally,” she said. “It’s against my cultural identity.”
Crossing the Line 2011: FIAF Fall Festival Trailer
Crossing the Line 2011: FIAF Fall Festival Trailer from FIAF on Vimeo.
“One of the fall’s most exciting and thought provoking performance events”
—New York Times (2010)
The fifth edition of Crossing the Line, the annual fall festival of the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF), hits NYC September 17–October 16, 2011. Check back here for up-to-the-minute details and information. Full website and ticket sales will launch August 1.
Visit: fiaf.org/crossingtheline/2011/
Crossing the Line is conceived as a platform to present vibrant new developments in artistic practices on both sides of the Atlantic. Initiated and produced by FIAF in partnership with leading New York cultural institutions, the fifth annual edition of this transdisciplinary, genre-defying festival of contemporary arts provides opportunities for New Yorkers to explore the dialogue between artist and participant; to examine how artists help re-imagine the world around us; and to engage with the vital role artists play as critical thinkers and catalysts for social evolution.
“The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye” Director Marie Losier
Marie Losier’s latest film “The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye” is sure to be a hit! We have been watching her career over the past few years and she is destined for success! Have a read of her latest interview on IndieWire.
Marie Losier was born in France in 1972, and now lives in New York City where she is a filmmaker and curator. She has made a number of film portraits on avant-garde directors, musicians and composers such as Mike and George Kuchar, Guy Maddin, Richard Foreman, Tony Conrad and Genesis P-Orridge. Whimsical, poetic, dreamlike and unconventional, her films explore the life and work of these artists.
Amelie Chabannes – Fragments Galerie Hussenot, Paris April 28th to June 6th 2011
New York City Based French Artist Amelie Chabannes takes her latest exhibition to Paris.
“FRAGMENTS”
From the 28th Of April to the 6th of June 2011
Opening thursday the 28th of April 2011
5 pm
Galerie Hussenot
5 bis, rue des Haudriettes
75003 PARIS
T : +33(0)1 4887 6081 – info@galeriehussenot.com – http://www.galeriehussenot.com
Amélie Chabannes / Fragments
Texte de Julie Boukobza
La première exposition personnelle d’Amélie Chabannes à la galerie Hussenot à Paris est constituée d’une somme de « Fragments ». Dans « l’Archéologie du Savoir », Michel Foucault évoque « ce qui transforme les documents en monuments ». Chabannes empreinte les façons de l’archéologue, cherche et devient l’objet de sa quête. Elle évoque les grottes de Chauvet, comme Paul Thek en son temps les catacombes de Palerme. Sculpture après sculpture, strate après strate, elle enfouit, dégage, excave et replonge les matériaux, animaux, traces et vestiges. L’identité, plus que la quête de l’autre, est le prétexte utilisé par l’artiste pour expérimenter et forger une pratique protéiforme. Entre sa fascination pour le Lagerstatte, lieu de conservation des fossiles, et son obsession pour le couple que formait le peintre Kokoschka et Alma Mahler, femme à hommes du XIXème siècle, Amélie Chabannes réalise des oeuvres à sa mesure. La biométrie est transformée en arme pour préserver l’identité de l’artiste à travers ses sculptures, dessins et installations. Les amours tempêtueuses de Kokoschka et Alma font l’objet de dessins au calque ou les corps se mélangent, où l’artiste s’immisce dans ce pas de deux, quand la fusion prend le pas sur le sentiment amoureux. Les visages en plâtre décomposés rappellent les travestissements multiples et autres brouillages de pistes de Leigh Bowery, contenus dans un carré de plexiglas. L’artiste décrit ces boîtes comme des « espaces mentaux ». Même espace dans lesquels évolue une autre forme, le clitoris, l’organe féminin par excellence, libéré de ses fonctions. Au creux d’une sculpture on découvre parfois des apparitions de Betty Page ou Linda Lovelace, des visages de femmes archétypales des années 50 à 70. La notion d’identité sexuelle ne cesse en effet de rattraper l’artiste et de questionner l’aliénation qu’elle représente pour les femmes. La méduse, forme libre, nageuse et sexuée, fait aussi partie de ce bestiaire empêché, présence impossible à définir, tout aussi animale que végétale. Des chapelets dégoulinent de plâtre sur le carcan de l’identité religieuse. Amélie Chabannes vit à New York, ville en passe de devenir un vaste terrain de fouille, avec l’influence de Urs Fischer, Matthew Day Jackson, David Altmedj comme fiers étendards d’un retour à l’ordre antique. Identité sociale, sexuelle, religieuse, ou le « get over yourself » répété par Thek à maintes reprises dans ses carnets. A Chabannes de sacrifier le lustre et la porcelaine familiale pour en finir avec les conventions sociales liées à un milieu figé. Un index en cire pointe l’une de ces sculptures stratifiées, la main de l’architecte semblant avoir remplacée celle de l’artiste l’espace d’un instant, afin de constater l’œuvre déjà accomplie.
FIAF presents World Nomads Morocco Festival – April 30–May 31, 2011
Are you in New York City this month? Don’t forget to check out this amazing festival.
Under the High Patronage of His Majesty King Mohammed VI
FIAF presents World Nomads Morocco Festival
April 30–May 31, 2011FIAF’s annual World Nomads Festival is a New York City destination that celebrates 21st-century transculturalism through the arts while advancing critical thinking and dialogue among cultures. The integrated platform offers opportunities for an exchange of ideas and artistic expression among traditional and contemporary cultures.
The Festival’s fourth edition arrives this May at a historic time to celebrate the many facets of Morocco.
One of the highlights of the Festival will be the Key Note Talk on May 11 with André Azoulay, Royal Advisor to His Majesty King Mohammed VI, and Faouzi Skali, a widely recognized cultural and intellectual figure in Morocco.
Morocco is recognized worldwide for its distinctive and layered cultural identity. The country’s unique geographical location has made it a crossroad for ancient trade routes, and continues to contribute to its importance as a migratory highway for ideas and peoples.
Today’s Morocco shines as a hub of traditional and modern creative expression where ancient cultural practices thrive while innovations are woven into vibrant contemporary artistic forms. The Festival will explore its parallel ancient/modern culture, sustainability, women, and the environment.
The festival is conceived by the French Institute Alliance Francaise (FIAF) and organized in partnership with leading Moroccan and U.S. cultural institutions. The Festival is made possible with the generous support of numerous sponsors.
The Festival is curated by Zeyba Rahman, Chief Curator, and Lili Chopra, FIAF’s Artistic Director.
Master Gnaoua Musicians – FIAF, World Nomads Morocco Festival
Saturday, May 21, 2011
8pm
Venue at FIAF
Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th Street
New York, NY 10022
Morocco’s leading Gnaoua masters, representing the major Gnaoua centers of Essaouira and Marrakech, will present an unprecedented performance of this entrancing and mystical music. They include Mustapha Bakbou and Mahmoud Guinea, among others. Originating in sub-Saharan Africa, the music serves as both a prayer and a celebration of life with strong, distinctive rhythmic beats and acrobatic dancing.
Presented in partnership with Essaouira Mogador Association with the Gnaoua and World Music Festival and Yerma Gnaoua Association (Essaouira)
French In America 