A collection of essays in which
Chantal Pontbriand
examines themes of being-in-common in today's world and their relation to the development of art practices.
The essays in this collection were written in the first decade of the new millennium by the critic, editor, and curator Chantal Pontbriand. Pontbriand examines themes of being-in-common in today's world and their relation to the development of art practices. As these practices are implemented, other ways of seeing, understanding, and making appear. Contemporaneity functions as a flow, a space-time being that cannot be fixated. The body is in the forefront—a thermometer of the world lived in and with, marked by dynamics of change and sharing.
The work of
Claire Fontaine, Douglas Gordon and
Philippe Parreno,
Ion Grigorescu,
Carsten Höller,
Mike Kelley,
Sigalit Landau,
Rabih Mroué,
Yvonne Rainer,
Rirkrit Tiravanija, and
Jeff Wall, among other artists, is examined in this book, together with Pontbriand's insights into the seminal issues stirring the field of contemporary art.
“Since founding
Parachute magazine in the 1970s, Chantal Pontbriand has been at the forefront of debates that describe the shifting spaces and disciplines of contemporary art. With this new book, Pontbriand's incisive brilliance and commitment to art and ideas shine through. This is a book that poses the most urgent critical questions about the trajectories of art, artists, and public in a global world.” —Okwui Enwezor, director of Haus der Kunst, Munich
“Chantal Pontbriand expertly bridges worlds and concepts, art and community, the singular and the common, and more. This is a major contribution to our understanding of what is becoming a major force worldwide: the emergent intersection of domains long kept separate. In a second vital conceptual move, Pontbriand unsettles fixities—the contemporary, the modern, the postmodern. What we thought was a given takes on unexpected fluidities, and we see what we had not seen.” —Saskia Sassen, Robert S. Lynd, Professor of Sociology, Columbia University, and author of
A Sociology of GlobalizationA contemporary art historian, critic, and curator, Chantal Pontbriand co-founded
Parachute in 1975 and edited its 125 issues until 2007. Her work is based on the exploration of questions of globalization and artistic heterogeneity. She has curated numerous international contemporary art events: exhibitions, international festivals and international conferences, mainly in photography, video, performance, dance and multimedia installation. After curating several major performance events and festivals, she co-founded the FIND (Festival International de Nouvelle Danse), in Montreal and was president and director from 1982 to 2003. She was appointed Head of Exhibition Research and Development at Tate Modern in London in 2010 and more recently founded PONTBRIAND W.O.R.K.S. [We_Others and Myself_Research_ Knowledge_Systems]. Since 2012, she is Associate Professor at the Sorbonne-Paris IV, in curatorial studies. In 2013, she received the Governor General of Canada Award for an Outstanding Contribution in the Visual and Media Arts.
