Prix Meurice for Contemporary Art 2010/2011

Ariane Michel

Galerie Jousse Entreprise

Born in 1973, She lives in Paris.

Educated at the ‘Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs’ in Paris, and at ‘Pavillion’, in the research department at the Palais de Tokyo, Ariane Michel principally directs films and video installations which bring into play the relationships between the animal, human, vegetable and mineral worlds. The links between look, presence, but especially the spatio-temporal scales which confront each other and confront the visitor. Thus, her recent works appeal to the universe of the prehistoric cave understood in some sort as ‘vital space of the exhibition’.
For example ‘La Ligne du Dessus’, this genuine “fresco video’ that she has directed in Mongolia by filming the wild horses of Przewalski, genuine pre-historic survivors, who are the close cousins of horses represented in the caves of Lascaux. Or as in the installation La Cave Jarkov, which demonstrates the real presence of a mammoth living intact in the permafrost of Siberia. The animal becomes a link between the pre-language space-time, in these 2 works prehistoric times are literally reanimated.

The Project :
The Screening is a projected performance which takes place in a wood, not far from the town centre. One night, an audience is driven by torch lights to a clearing. There, they discover a film which takes place during the night in an identical wood. The night animals observe some humans who are ensconced watching a film. The public thus recognise themselves, when the animals approach, curiously… It’s a mise en abyme, a deforming mirror which gives the spectator the view point of the savage world in which they are living. In this performance real space-time and the film’s space-time confront each other and join together, in a sort of shamanic journey which troubles the present.
The Screening has been presented only 2 times previously; once in Bassel during Ariane Michel’s participation in ‘Art Statements’ (2007), and once in Meuse, on the invitation of FRAC Lorraine (2009). Béatrice Gross, exposition commissioner and independent art critic based in New York, wishes to organise this performance in New York in a setting chosen “outside” during the Armory Show, while the gallery participate at the Armory Show or at The Independent Art Fair.

Solo shows :
Solo shows :
2010
Paléorama, Fondation Ricard, Paris
2010 La Ligne du dessus et Le Camp, Galerie Jousse Entreprise, Paris
2009
Ariane Michel. Stolac Museum, Stolac, Bosnia
2008
Ariane Michel, The French May / Alliance Française de Hong Kong & agnès b.'s librairie - Gallery, Hong Kong, Chine
2007
The screening, galerie Jousse Entreprise, Paris - The screening, Art Statements project, Art Basel 38

Group Shows :
2009
Entre-Temps, a decade of French video art in the collections of the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
2008
Observing beast, time, evolution. Art and Science, Kunstverein Hildesheim und Roemer-Paelizaeus Museum, Hildesheim, Allemagne
In the cinema. Centro de Memoria, Vila do Conde, Portugal
2007
L’Atelier du Jeu de Paume : a new generation of artists