Exhibitions

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of this Prize, with a delay due to the pandemic, an exhibition is organised by the Aurelie Nemours Association with a choice of works by each of the laureates, presented in the rooms of the Drawing Lab, 17 rue de Richelieu in Paris from July 1 to September 21, 2022.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue and its opening will coincide in the same venue with the presentation of the 2021 prize to Pe Lang and Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri on 30 June 2022 by Mr Xavier Darcos, Chancellor of the Institut de France.

Irrespective of their subject matter, all drawings start with a dot, then a line to another, and so on. A bit like mapping a path from point A to point B. Which is also how humans connected the stars in the night sky. It’s how constellations were created, and the way they are still represented today.
Might star constellations not have been the first de facto abstract drawings?
Yet, still today, these celestial drawings situate our very bodies and individual identities. Between two fictitious points. Between two planes: the earth and the sky.
Series of points like these which are connected by lines, let us project ourselves into the future and imagine more intricate drawings or paths to follow. That is the starting point of Du Temps sois la mesure (“Of Time be the Measure”). A handful of strokes and dots whose intention extends beyond what we can see: a more extensive pictorial projection, a measure of space and time.

The exhibition I See a Bird / Je vois un oiseau is the scene of multiple narratives, a succession of “drawn voyages,” where changing landscapes, real or fictional, blend into each other. Connected in a fluid and borderless environment, birds are our guides here. Free and autonomous, they embody the problems of lines, trajectories, energy (“creative wings”), the ways of the world, and landscapes, which all permeate the work of Chourouk Hriech. Through drawing, the artist creates a metaphorical location, a city-world whose main inhabitants are birds that are also witnesses to the ecological crisis.

The black numeral refers to the difference in subjectivity between two opposing forces. Between fantasy and rationalism, these figures ultimately prove to be false since they are based on an unknown. It is these unknowns that Nicolas Daubanes is attacking. The exhibition Le Chiffre Noir is not a pleasure walk. Quite the contrary. The subjects treated by the artist are neither beautiful nor light. And yet. In his practice, Nicolas Daubanes confronts the strongest or most fragile materials that are created from fire. For this solo exhibition at the Drawing Lab, concrete, glass, ceramics, iron filings (signature)… are works that carry stories that question us in our relationship with the past and the collective memory.

Around the world, the oldest artistic expressions are linked to a spiritual approach and most of them have been discovered inside caves. The cave is a universal archetype of self-reflection and communication with other kingdoms, closely related to the symbol of the “heart”. Using the heart of the cave as a mythological setting and anchor, Vanessa Enríquez has withdrawn and connected over the past year to the ancestral practices of drawing, singing and ritual using the VHS magnetic tape as a drawing tool, musical instrument and talisman.

The exhibition DRAWING POWER – Children of Compost explores the sometimes unsuspected power of drawing to act and reflect on current ecological issues. Drawing creates shapes and representations, diagrams and patterns, scenes and figures. We need these new representations to imagine differently, and thus change our role on the planet: the way we conceive of life is the way we realize it.

The exhibition TOUT UN FILM! presents a collection of specimens selected from the collections of La Cinémathèque Française, which mingle with the works from the artists’ workshops as well as the collections of their galleries. Our selection sheds light on the cross influence of these two arts, from storyboarding to the very material of the making of the film, celluloid.

Tierradentro , in English ”the land of the interior”, is the name of an archaeological site located in a mountainous and steep area of the Cauca Valley in Colombia on the Pacific coast. Famous for its hidden tombs and monumental monolithic sculptures, it houses the remnants of the pre-Columbian culture of the same name. Inspired by the architecture and location of the Drawing Lab, Daniel Otero Torres designs an exhibition covering the spaces of an underground tomb.

Even though the practice of drawing is an essential component of their projects, Lucy and Jorge Orta have never shown the complete process of their creation, which relies in particular on drawing.

Taken from the title of my short story written in 2011, Le Soir du Poulpe is also a short film project in progress. In this exhibition, you will be able to see the storyboard boards, before entering one of the rooms of the decor: a Parisian maid’s room where the protagonist writes the short story Le Soir du Poulpe.