LES flâneuses
copies, appropriations, CItations DANS LA collection
DU centRE national des arts plastiques
Every change of context, every change of medium can be interpreted as a negation of the status of a copy as a copy—as an essential rupture, as a new start that opens a new future. In this sense, a copy is never really a copy; rather, a new original in a new context. Every copy is by itself a flaneur—experiencing time and again its own “profane illuminations” that turn it into an original. It loses old auras and gains new auras. It remains perhaps the same copy, but it becomes different originals.
Boris Groys, Going Public
Les Flâneuses results from curatorial research carried out within the collections of the Centre national des arts plastiques, which focused on the contested notions of copies, appropriations and quotations. Looking at art and design objects from the 19th century to today, this curatorial project shows how reproductions of artworks can be considered as objects with a specific cultural value and regarded in the same way as the originals. Guided by an interview between Francesca Zappia and Juliette Pollet, curator at Cnap, the reader travels through an imaginary and often anachronistic museum. The rooms devoted to Antiquities, the Renaissance, the 17th and 18th centuries, the modern and contemporary periods bring together more than 300 works and forge new links between them. Throughout the chapters, the reader can meet the artists Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc, Aurélien Mole and Matthew Darbyshire who, each in their own way, open up additional perspectives of research.
This research was carried out in 2015-2016 thanks to a grant for curatorial research
Co-published by Shelter Press and Centre national des arts plastiques
540 pages, 300+ illustrations
Format 15 x 21 cm
Silkscreen printed softcover
ISBN: 978-2-36582-041-7
Order online
Images courtesy Cnap/Shelter Press
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