press kit

site specific exhibitions

Danilo Dueñas,The reparation of visionfrom September 16 to December 22, 2017Villa du Parc, Annemasse

Juan Fernando Herrán,Stone and Dustfrom September 15 to November 26, 2017La Halle des bouchers, Vienne

french art centerscolombian artists

openings: Vienne, September 15 at 7pmAnnemasse, September 16 at 5pm

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Since 1985, the Institut Français has been encouraging dialogue between France and a series of countries around the world thanks to a joint six- to twelve-month program of events. France-Colombia 2017 is the first time the program involves a Spanish-speaking country and only the second in South America after Brazil. It is also the most ambitious program of cooperation that has ever been worked out between the two countries. Over 700 events are scheduled on the two sides of the Atlantic in a variety of domains, from culture, economics, gastronomy, and scientific research, to higher education, sports, and digital technologies.France-Colombia 2017 began with France in Colombia, which ran from 16 December 2016 to 14 July 2017 in the latter country’s ten largest cities, followed by Colombia in France, which debuted on 23 June and will run to 17 December 2017. The aim of this initiative is to reinforce relations between the two countries, open up their cooperation to new disciplines, and modernize the image that each of the countries may have of the other. The decision to bring the two together, in the context of Colombia, springs from the highly favorable dynamism of the economy and the peace process, notably the agreement signed with FARC and the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos in 2016.

As part of the France-Colombia 2017 program, the contemporary art centers of Villa du Parc and La Halle des bouchers are each featuring a show by two major artists from Colombia’s art scene, Danilo Dueñas in Annemasse and Juan Fernando Herrán in Vienne.

introduction to the France-Colombia season 2017

La Halle des bouchersThe Contemporary Art Center La Halle des bouchers was inaugurated in 2014 thanks to an initiative of the City of Vienne. The art center enjoys the support of the Auvergne – Rhône-Alpes Region, Drac Auvergne – Rhône-Alpes, and the Département de l’Isère. The center mounts four to five solo or group shows annually. Looking to build on the center’s aspirations in keeping with the themes and concerns of contemporary visual art, the exhibition and events program of the Contemporary Art Center La Halle des bouchers reflects the diversity of art today in terms of its esthetic and societal issues, whether the artist is emerging or established, known regionally, nationally, or internationally. The mission pursued by La Halle des bouchers embraces the notion of serendipity. Sometimes called “accidental discovery,” serendipity involves making an unexpected or accidental discovery, which springs from an attitude of mind that combines openness to experiences, curiosity, and ingenuity. Taking off from a precise starting point, whether in terms of literature, music, or cultural legacy, the exhibitions respond to one another and open up new perspectives. The exhibition and events program of the Contemporary Art Center La Halle des bouchers aims to pique visitors’ curiosity, making them privileged witnesses of art today.

La Villa du ParcThe contemporary art center Villa du Parc is an exhibition venue dedicated to today’s visual and artistic practices and located in Annemasse (the city bordering Geneva). Steadfastly focused on contemporary artmaking, the Villa du Parc is a hub for artists and the production and creation of art, as well as a center for promoting and transmitting contemporary art to the general public.The creation of works of art is part of the main concerns of contemporary art that the Villa du Parc actively supports. Invited artists contribute to the vitality of contemporary art and enjoy national and even international exposure. The Villa du Parc is committed to a program of events that is grounded in a diversity of practices, just as the field of contemporary art (painting, drawing, photography, video, writing, etc.). Each year a particular theme for the season is addressed, through 4 or 5 solo or group shows, whether esthetic, societal or geographic, making it possible to tackle a notion or field of activity from several points of view and timeframes.

introduction to the contemporary art centers

Danilo Dueñas was born in 1956 in Cali; he lives and works in Bogotá. Since the 1980s he has been creating a body of pictorial work and sculptural assemblage that makes use of salvaged materials and is part of that artistic tradition based on materials borrowed from an artist’s immediate environment. Well known in Latin America and the United States, Danilo Dueñas has also regularly shown in Germany, where he was the guest artist of the DAAD Gallery in 2011. His work is seen in the most important art institutions of Colombia, where he is also a professor at the Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá. He is represented by the galleries Casas Riegner in Bogotá and the Thomas Schulte in Berlin.

Villa du Parc, the contemporary art center of Annemasse, is pleased to host the first solo show in France featuring the work of Danilo Dueñas, who has been an inescapable presence on the contemporary art scene of Colombia for three decades now. Called “The Reparation of Vision,” the show is entirely conceived and produced for the Villa du Parc galleries and the context of a French setting. It blends objects having a strong cultural connotation and salvaged materials collected around the art center’s specific geographic and institutional location.

Dueñas’s art is suffused with the artist’s strong sympathy for the world around him. Objects that are observed, found, salvaged, and assembled form the basis of a practice that assumes many forms, i.e., pictures, sculptures, and installations. Taking into account the context of both the architecture and the exhibition as a work in itself is an approach that gradually came to dominate his art as Dueñas broadened the conditions of visibility, interaction, and balance between his pieces. “Reparation of Vision” is indeed the announced intention of Dueñas’s exhibition at Villa du Parc.

“Therefore the reparation of vision is trying to be vigilant in the before. The before is ours, it is the world’s possibility, which we must nourish and feed. Taking account of color, of layers, of time in the gaze.” (Danilo Dueñas)

The reparation of vision, Danilo Dueñas

In Danilo Dueñas’ studio in Bogotá, october 2016.

Danilo Dueñas, A Flight, 2009

Danilo Dueñas, The iron cross, 2015, Courtesy Galerie Thomas Schulte and Danilo Dueñas

Danilo Dueñas, El monte Tabor, 2015, Courtesy Galerie Thomas Schulte and Danilo Dueñas

Juan Fernando Herrán is a Colombian artist born in 1963, living and working in Bogotá. Major figure of the Colombian arts scene, he was trained at the Los Andes university (Bogotá), where he graduated with a master’s degree in sculpture, and he also took a cycle post degree in Arts Theory at the Chelsea College of Art in London.His work was recently the subject of monographic exhibitions in different places such as the Museo Amparo (Puebla, Mexico, 2017), the Nueveochenta gallery (Bogotá, 2016), the MAMM (Museum of modern art in Madellin, 2016), or the NC-arte (Bogotá 2011).Internationally, his works have been shown among others, at the 5th Biennale of Havana (1994), the 5th Biennale of Istanbul (1997), the 2nd Biennale of Mercosul in Porto Alegre (1999), the 26th Biennale of Sao Paulo in 2004 and the 54th Biennale of Venice in 2011.In Europe, he participated in many different group exhibitions: at the Museum of modern art in Paris, the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, or even at the Museum of contemporary art in Castille-Leon. His works are present in several private and public collections, including the Museo de Arte del Banco de la Republica (Bogotá), the National Museum of Colombia (Bogotá), the Museum of art, National University

(Bogotá), the Jumex Collection (Mexico, Mexico), the Acro Foundation (Madrid, Spain), or even the Museum of Fine Arts in Huston (USA).

For his first solo exhibition in an European institution, Juan Fernando Herrán moves into the exhibition space of the Contemporary art center La Halle des bouchers, proposing an installation based on the age-old sedimentation of the city of Vienne.If materials and archeological objects’ study is the key to allow him to interpret the past, it also reveals and testifies the way present is grounded in History. Juan Fernando Herrán‘s works address issues which allow crossing cultural backgrounds with societal subjects not always visible at first sight. For his project in Vienne, the artist became interested in tracing out and questioning the archeological and patrimonial material of the city, and the way sedimentation has shaped its History. This research, which includes sculpture, video and photography, thus has enriched an installation project which takes shape with the Contemporary art center La Halle des bouchers’s space.

Stone and Dust, Juan Fernando Herrán

Juan Fernando Herrán, Espina Dorsal, 2009-2010

Juan Fernando Herrán, Espina Dorsal, 2009-2010

Juan Fernando Herrán, Project documentation (Ventana), 2017

Juan Fernando Herrán, Project documentation (Puerta), 2017

In the Auvergne – Rhône-Alpes Region, Colombian visual arts will be front and center during the second half of 2017.

In Annecy, imagespassages will be featuring a show devoted to the artists Ricardo Saavedra and Sonia Rojas at the Marc Limousin Gallery from 6 to 28 October 2017.

Clermont-Ferrand will host a series of discussions and debates (starting 7 October) to initiate changes in both France and Colombia touching on questions of environmental and social consciousness at the heart of our eating habits, notably through training in urban agriculture.

Grenoble will be hosting a group of events under the title “Colombia in France” that will run from 1 to 31 October 2017. From 16 to 21 October an International Forum will be held over four days, focusing on NGOs and citizen and social innovations, followed by an Urban-Rural Festival for the general public, on 20 and 21 October.

In Lyon, several events are scheduled. First, a focus on Colombia at the Maison de la Danse, which will be presenting the dance company L’Explose and its production of “Tu nombre me sabe a tango” by the choreographer Tino Fernandez, from 16 to 19 November. The piece presents Argentinian tango from the ‘50s that has been reworked in a contemporary idiom. The Maison de la Danse will also be featuring the Colombian collective Danza Region from 27 to 28 October with the show “Combate de negros en un sótano por la noche,” combining traditional and contemporary dance to spotlight South America’s minorities.

For three days Colombia will be part of the Lyon Street Food Festival, starting 8 September. The South American country will also be present at the international theater festival Sens Interdits, with plays, discussions, and masterclasses at the Théâtre de la Renaissance in Oullins on 20 and 21 October; the Théâtre des Célestins in Lyon on 24 and 25 October; and Le Radiant in Caluire on 27 and 28 October.

Music will also be part of the celebration, starting with a joint project called Musicas Hibridas. Showcasing individuals who are active in the music sectors of Lyon or Bogotá, Musicas Hibridas is scheduled for late October or early November and is meant to promote professional, educational, and creative exchanges between the two cities. The Maison des Cultures du Monde will also be hosting the Colombian singer and poet Orlando “El Cholo” Valderrama and his musicians on 12 October.

In Saint-Etienne, from 1 October to 31 December 2017 the city will be hosting a series of lectures and talks in collaboration with the National University of Colombia, as well as a cooperative educational program of ENSAE and USB Medellín on the transformations of cities and rural and postindustrial territories.

Finally, at the Comédie of Valence, the stage director Eric Massé will present his production of “Femme Verticale,” on the women of Colombia.

France-Colombia 2017 in Auvergne - Rhône-Alpes

The annual photography festival Les Rencontres d’Arles will be celebrating Latin America with a special focus on Colombia in several exhibitions : “Pulsions urbaines : Photographie latino-américaine, 1960-2016” (Urban Impulses: Latin-American Photography, 1960-2016), “La vache et l’orchidée” and “La Vuelta” (The Tour) will showcase the work of 28 Colombian artists and photographers (including Juan Fernando Herrán).

For two months the Pompidou Center will feature an innovative retrospective project called “Cosmopolis #1,” an approach to contemporary collaborative art practices that broadly focuses on contemporary Colombian artmaking.

A dozen art centers in France will also be home to a number of artists in residence in a joint undertaking of French and Colombian institutions, including MAC VAL and the Pompidou Center.La Chambre, an exhibition and studio space in Strasbourg, has scheduled a residency between the two countries that will run from September to November and will conclude with an exhibition in Strasbourg in late autumn.

FRAC des Pays de la Loire will be hosting five Colombian artists towards the end of 2017 as part of the Ateliers Internationaux. These artists include Danilo Dueñas, whose work will be shown in Carquefou in early 2018.

Les Abattoirs, an art venue in Toulouse, will be showcasing works dating from 1950 to the present by a variety of Colombian artists. The exhibition will allow visitors to discover the history of Colombia and notably the conflicts there going back several decades, with an emphasis on the department of Antioquia and its capital, Medellín.

CAPC Musée d’art contemporain of Bordeaux will be hosting the first retrospective exhibition devoted to the emblematic Colombian painter Beatriz González, from November 2017 to February 2018.

From October to December 2017, the Maison de l’Amérique latine in Paris will feature the first ever solo show of the artist Johanna Calle. Through work that straddles a number of media, the artist questions the complex reality of Latin America and Colombia in particular.

The international contemporary art fair FIAC takes place in Paris from 17 to 22 October. This year the fair is giving special emphasis to Colombia by inviting six Colombian curators to take part. Colombian artists will also exhibiting and Colombian galleries will be present with their own contributions.

From December 2 to February 18, a group show entitled «Le bruit des choses qui tombent» will intertwine works from Colombian artists with works from FRAC PACA collection around one emotion, those of fear.

Full program :www.anneefrancecolombie.com

Colombian visual arts celebrated in France

practical informationContemporary art center La Halle des bouchers7 rue Teste du Bailler 38200 Vienne (France)04 74 84 72 76Open from Wednesday to Sunday,from 1pm to 6pm.

Director: Marc BembekoffEducation: Delphine RioultPublic programs: M’barka Amor, Iris EschenbrennerVisitors assistants: Françoise Requero, Julien Ravion

www.cac-lahalledesbouchers.frwww.culture.vienne.frFacebook : www.facebook.com/CAC.LaHalledesbouchersInstagram : http://instagram.com/cac_lahalledesbouchers

La Villa du Parc, contemporary art center12 rue de Genève 74100 Annemasse (France)04 50 38 84 61Open from Tuesday to Saturday, from 2pm to 6:30pm.

Director: Garance ChabertEducation: Michel DelajoudAdministration and accounting: Priscilla CordaCommunication: Vanessa ForayProjects manager: Ludivine Zambon

www.villaduparc.orghttps://www.facebook.com/villaduparc.cac.annemasse/

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