IN/VISIBLE – In search of the invisible masterpiece

If there are spaces of collusion, there are others that obey to strategies, or said maybe more accurately, to tactics of diversion. 

The collection of the 49 Nord 6 Est – Frac Lorraine, for instance, which is hosted by the ikob through a choice of significant artworks that reveal its singular and strategic character. In a few words, it is about inventing viewpoints turned the other way round, celebrating the invisibility and sensoriality and demanding the disappearance.

In such a perspective, the institution is not anymore a place of celebration, consecration and legitimization but rather turns into one of experimentation, a playground, a field open to all forms of critical manoeuvre and operation. For, to quote Hubert Damish: “The time has come for a playful use of the institution which, in fact, corresponds to the real and more consistent practice of modern and contemporary art.”

In that sense, IN/VISIBLE reflects the current tendency of the contemporary art world of finding or reformulating alternative art forms that are not submitted to any market pressure and are connected to a fundamental artistic thinking which seems to have been lost in the past years. Hence this exhibition is an opportunity for the ikob to both paying tribute to one of the most original and committed collections of the institutional contemporary art landscape and, almost directly, questioning its own status as a museum and thinking about its collection's future. As it is said in the “introduction” to the Frac Lorraine's collection, which today is composed of more than 800 works:

“If the Frac Lorraine collects every year works of nationally and internationally acclaimed artists, this process nonetheless is accompanied by a reflection on the very act of collecting. Indeed, it would be reductive to present this collection without mentioning that for a few years, the Frac Lorraine has been trying to question the limits of a collection, echoing the current means for artistic creation. Who can deny that since the 1960's a part of the art comes from performance and that the proximity to the cinema is always more obvious. Following this guideline, it is not a surprise that the Frac Lorraine has come to naturally collecting rather artwork proposals than their tangible realisation. Most of them are immaterial (performances, artist's protocols to be reactivated) and the collection has opened up to other disciplines (dance, cinema).”