This book examines the notion of deferred receptions of theories and art through
language, context and translations.Vincent Bonin explores the gap between the publication of a text in one language and that of its translation (using the example of the
French Theory), or between the inaugural presentation of an artwork in one context and its subsequent display. A critical reflection on the discourses surrounding contemporary art practices.
A gap always manifests itself between the publication of a text in one language and that of its translation, or between the inaugural presentation of an artwork in one context and its display in a second.
In this project, presented in two installments, the first at the Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery of Concordia University and the second at the artist-run centre Dazibao, and in the present catalogue, curator Vincent Bonin addresses a manifestation of this phenomenon of deferred reception: the way in which a body of theoretical texts by French philosophers was assimilated in Anglophone art milieus from the late 1970s to the present. However, Bonin maps this trajectory of “French Theory” in an indexical way by alluding to the communities of elective affinities formed by artists, critics and curators during the parenthesis of postmodernism (1977-1990).
Published following the eponymous two-part exhibition at Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, and at Dazibao, Montreal, from November 14, 2013, to January 25, 2014.
Vincent Bonin is author and independent curator. In addition to his research on
conceptual art practices in the 1960s and 1970s, Bonin is interested in the social significance of
archives and the renewal of the documentary form in the field of contemporary art.
