PRIZE 2006 INCIPIT
In literature, the incipit designates the first phrases of a novel, and in cinema the first scenes of a movie. It functions as a threshold, an open frontier between the outside of the real world and the inside of fiction. It is the beginning of a narration that anticipates what will come to pass, and suggests arrival with no thing being unveiled.
Rather than wanting to push these works towards analysis and categories borrowed from literary and cinematic discourses, « Incipit » simply focuses on the moment of becoming of the work, where these artists avow their relationship with reality and take-a-stand.
The exhibition is inspired by the video « A fire is a fire is not a fire » by Claire Fontaine (2006), a disturbing representation of a press photograph of a car set on fire slowly burning. How are artists responding to or avoiding such an event? Events like the riots of last November in France that will affect the long-term basis our representations.
Tuning into burning questions and scrutinizing the anomalies of reality and the surrounding modes of control and subversion, these works of « Incipit » take a stand on implicit and incomplete communications. By opting for blurred signs, remaining ambiguous in references and messages, each modality of appearance, plays with expectations, disorientating immersions and seductions between laughter and anxiety.
The precipice of the viewer’s hesitation produces a nebulous drama where this anxiety is played out.
Fondation d’Entreprise Ricard’ Prize 2006
Created in 1999, the prize will be awarded to one of the artists of « Incipit ». French collectors will award the prize during the FIAC. This year, the foundation increases the value of this prize of 50%. The prize consists of purchasing the artist who win a work of art which is then offered to and exhibited at the Centre Georges Pompidou.
