Crossing Values – Les Ateliers de Rennes – Biennale d'art contemporain

What happens when an artist takes an interest in the world of work and in the world of economic production? And, moreover, when he or she actually enters those worlds to explore their mechanisms and blur their boundaries, thus putting his or her own praxis to the test?
Crossing Values explores what artistic activity and corporate/business activity have in common and, just as much, what sets them apart: work and labour, creators of value. The artistic gesture has always echoed changes occurring in the workplace, questioning the meaning of work and coming up with other forms for it. Nowadays, in a rationalised world, where even education and culture must be profitable, artists are challenging the systems of logic governing productivity and alienation, the loss of meaning, and the place of imagination.
Sixty-two artists were brought together to introduce their own work, much of it new, to the problem set. Some were involved in company residencies, confronting their approach and method with those of the employees—an in vivo experiment—leading to a reappraisal of the artist's role, the status of what he or she creates, and the place of the subject in the world of work.
The Crossing Values catalogue offers both a record and an extension of the experiments carried out in Rennes. It encompasses analyses by art critics, artists, philosophers, sociologists, trade unionists and members of the corporate world, as well as comprehensive documentation of the projects produced and the works exhibited.