Vincent Meessen - Personne et les autres - Mousse Publishing 2015
The European colonial heritage revisited: Meessen invited ten international artists to think the colonial modernity and connect it with the history of avant-garde, political and independence movements (catalogue of the Belgian Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale).
Personne et les autres borrows its title from a lost play by André Frankin, a Belgian art critic affiliated with the Lettrist and Situationist Internationals. The exhibition takes the history of the Belgian Pavilion and the international context of the Biennale (both derived from the colonial exhibitions and world expositions) as its points of departure. The Belgian Pavilion itself was the first foreign Pavilion to be built in the Giardini in Venice, during the reign of King Leopold II.
The project aims to provide insight into the diverse forms – whether artistic, cultural, or intellectual - that were produced by colonial encounters. The centerpiece of the exhibition is an audio-visual work by Vincent Meessen, which explores the role of Congolese intellectuals within the Situationist International. The book features ten other artists from four continents and – for the first time in the Pavilion – artists from Africa, all of whose work has probed the question of colonial modernity.Works by Vincent Meessen, Mathieu K. Abonnenc, Sammy Baloji, James Beckett, Elisabetta Benassi, Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin, Tamar Guimarães & Kasper Akhøj, Maryam Jafri, Adam Pendleton.
184p - EN/FR - 16x24cm - softcover - perfect condition
The project aims to provide insight into the diverse forms – whether artistic, cultural, or intellectual - that were produced by colonial encounters. The centerpiece of the exhibition is an audio-visual work by Vincent Meessen, which explores the role of Congolese intellectuals within the Situationist International. The book features ten other artists from four continents and – for the first time in the Pavilion – artists from Africa, all of whose work has probed the question of colonial modernity.Works by Vincent Meessen, Mathieu K. Abonnenc, Sammy Baloji, James Beckett, Elisabetta Benassi, Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin, Tamar Guimarães & Kasper Akhøj, Maryam Jafri, Adam Pendleton.
184p - EN/FR - 16x24cm - softcover - perfect condition