To what extend do exhibition curators, through their curating practices and in the spaces under their direction, inhabit and serve toxic figures? Discussions moderated by Lotte Arndt and Mathieu Kléyébé Abonnenec.

10 am: Welcoming those who come faceless and unannounced
The exhibition Rendez-vous: sortie de mon corps (Rendez-vous: out of my body) imagines a body divested of its biography and “acts” through the contradictory messages of contemporary society, a body in which the vestiges of utopias, the violence of capitalism appear like vibrations of minority cultures. Working from this exhibition manifesto in the Espace Khiasma, Olivier Marboeuf looks back on his practice in spaces and his performative research that tests available ideas of space and possessions.

11.30 am: Cannibalise and metabolise “toxic figures” – off the beaten track
Elena Agudio, art historian and curator, and Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, curator and biotechnologist, are co-directors of SAVVY Contemporary, an art centre in Berlin. We will be examining their next project, Giving contours to shadows, which rethinks History as a sort of Pharmakon, through which poisons are transformed to become antidotes.

2.30 pm: “The postcolonial exhibition” as a toxic figure.
By Marie-Laure Allain Bonilla, historian and critic. While we know what a colonial exhibition is and its enmity, like the Paris expo of 1931, it is more difficult to define precisely what a “postcolonial exhibition” would be. This is probably because we can no longer stand in strict opposition to the colonial past, we must offer different discursive and visual space, bearing witness to the unequal forces of cultural representation. (…) For this presentation, we will look at those that come closest to the idea of a toxic figure. By using specific examples from the 1980s onwards, we will trace a history of what can be called postcolonial exhibitions and highlight the most toxic elements in them, guilty of infecting the fabric of curatorial practices and contemporary art.”

4 pm: Round table discussion with Marie-Laure Allain Bonilla, Elena Agudio, Bonaventure So Bejeng Ndikung, Olivier Marboeuf and Zahia Rahmani
During the second portion of the afternoon, a round table will be dedicated to the structure of the art world, its financing and the impact that has on art creation. Artists and spaces committed to contesting hegemonic confines must face the institutional greed that tends to subsume liminal practices. These practices must then negotiate their positions within logic systems that defuse the disquiet and disorder for which they serve as a vehicle. What strategies can be developed in this situation shared by artists, theorists, curators and independent spaces?

5 pm: Presentation by Zahia Rahmaniµ
In conversation with Emmanuelle Cherel, writer and art historian Zahia Rahmani will present the INHA program "Art and mondialisation", from 2004.

Free entrance on reservation at:
reservation@leslaboratoires.org and +33 153 561 590