A conversation with multidisciplinary French artist Béatrice Balcou, whose work investigates reflexive issues directed at her practice, such as the spectator's experience and the artistic gesture.
This sixth title in the series is devoted to Béatrice Balcou and marks her exhibition at La Ferme du Buisson art centre. In the exhibition the artist makes a connection with her earlier work while at the same time putting recent changes in her practice into perspective. The new Digressions title echoes this significant turning point and its concrete implications for her work; and in her choice of interlocutors—Emilie Renard, Christophe Gallois and Julie Pellegrin—Balcou has decided to submit her current lines of exploration to the gaze of three kinds of curator. Via the interplay of these different but complementary voices she looks into the political dimension of discretion, the intertwining of time frames, the accountability of the exhibiting institution, the viewer experience and that of the public generally, and the relationship between working gesture, care-giving gesture and choreographic gesture.
Published on the occasion of the exhibition “L'économie des apostrophes” at the Ferme du Buisson, Marne-la-Vallée, from November 11, 2018, to February 10, 2019.
In performances, sculptures and installations Béatrice Balcou (born 1976 in France, lives and works in Brussels) creates situations offering innovative exhibition rituals that challenge our way of looking at and perceiving objects—especially works of art. Homing in on attentiveness to the materiality of the artwork and the behaviour of the viewer, she investigates the perceived value of art and the role assigned to it by our contemporary lifestyles.
