L’âge atomique – Musée d’art moderne de Paris
from 11 october to 09 février 2025
The Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris invites visitors to revisit the history of modernity in the 20th century through the imaginary world of the atom. The exhibition invites visitors to explore the artistic representations sparked by the scientific discovery of the atom and its applications, in particular the nuclear bomb, whose devastating consequences changed the fate of humanity. Bringing together nearly 250 works (paintings, drawings, photographs, videos and installations), as well as documentation that has often been previously unpublished, the exhibition shows, for the first time in a French institution, the very different positions taken by artists in the face of scientific advances and the controversies they provoked. Dealing with a subject that is more topical than ever, the exhibition is in keeping with the museum’s desire to reflect contemporary cultural and social concerns in its programming.
Le Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris propose de revisiter l’histoire de la modernité au XXème siècle à travers l’imaginaire de l’atome. L’exposition invite le public à une exploration des représentations artistiques suscitées par la découverte scientifique de l’atome et de ses applications, en particulier la bombe nucléaire dont les conséquences dévastatrices ont changé le destin de l’humanité. En réunissant près de 250 œuvres (peintures, dessins, photographies, vidéos et installations), ainsi qu’une documentation souvent inédite, l’exposition montre, pour la première fois dans une institution française, les positions très différentes prises par les artistes face aux avancées scientifiques et aux controverses qu’elles suscitent. Traitant d’un sujet plus que jamais d’actualité, elle s’inscrit dans la volonté du musée de faire écho, dans sa programmation, aux préoccupations culturelles et sociétales contemporaines.
Artists : Kenneth Adam, Horst Ademeit, Ant Farm, Francis Bacon, Enrico Baj, Robert Barry, Hélène de Beauvoir, Charles Bittinger, Erik Boulatov, Chris Burden, Victor Burgin, Alberto Burri, Myriam Cahn, Valdis Celms, Julian Charrière, Bruce Conner, Gregory Corso, Salvador Dalí, Gianni Dova, Marcel Duchamp, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Jaan Elken, Bonita Ely, Lucio Fontana, Loïe Fuller, General Idea, Guy Debord, Vidya Gastaldon, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Hans Grundig, Brion Gysin, Richard Hamilton, Raoul Hausmann, Inars Helmuts, Justino Herrera, « Hibakusha » (les survivants de la bombe atomique), Isao Hashimoto, Hi Red Center, Gary Hill, Jessie Homer French, Pierre Huyghe, Tatsuo Ikeda, Isidore Isou, Asger Jorn, Jugnet + Clairet, Vassily Kandinsky, Kikuji Kawada, On Kawara, György Kemény, Kiyonori Kikutake, Yves Klein, Hilma af Klint, Susanne Kriemann, Barbara Kruger, Tetsumi Kudo, Yayoi Kusama, Wifredo Lam, Mikhaïl Larionov, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Le Corbusier, Francesco Lo Savio, Piero Manzoni, Yoshito Matsushige, Roberto Matta, Herbert Matter, Gustav Metzger, Boris Mikhailov, László Moholy-Nagy, Henry Moore, Minoru Nakahara, Nakanishi Natsuyuki, Jürgen Nefzger, Barnett Newman, Natasha Nisic, Isamu Noguchi, Yoko Ono, Kiyoji Otsuji, Wolfgang Paalen, Eduardo Paolozzi, Claude Parent, Gaetano Pesce, Raymond Pettibon, Otto Piene, Giuseppe Pinot Gallizio, Sigmar Polke, André et Jean Polak, Jackson Pollock, Richard Pousette-Dart, Grant Powers, Margaret Raspé, Stefan Rinck, Thomas Schütte, Jim Shaw, Vladimir Shevchenko, Hayashi Shigeo, Kazuo Shiraga, Amy Sillman, Sisters of Survival, Nancy Spero, Viatcheslav Syssoev, Atsuko Tanaka, Koichi Tateishi, Diana Thater, Jean Tinguely, Shomei Tomatsu, Hiromi Tsuchida, Luc Tuymans, Peter Watkins, Ray Wisniewski, Wols, Vladimir Yankilevsky, Yamahata Yosuke, Alexander Zhitomirsky, etc.
Curators :
Julia Garimorth, conservatrice en chef au Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris
Maria Stavrinaki, professeure en histoire de l’art contemporain, Université de Lausanne
scientifical advisor :
Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou, enseignante-chercheuse en histoire de l’art et humanités environnementales, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
ANTIPHOTO – Release and talk, Photobiennale +, Düsseldorf, 25th May 2024
Chaillot Experience#8, Rwanda Ejo, 16 may 2024
With Bwimba Eloi, Hirwa Aubaine, Umutoni Cécile, Kayumba Jean Paul, Kanyankore Mucyo Arnaud, Mugiraneza Assumpta, and Iriba. Center.
Reportage about the performance on Rwanda TV, La Grande édition, 30/04/2024, at 11’30”
Au tribunal, Face au génocide des tutsi, RFI, la marche du monde de Valérie Nivelon.
After working on the Shoah, artist and director Natacha Nisic is preparing a sound piece, thirty years after the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda. She has worked extensively on the issue of extreme violence, notably with historian Annette Becker. In 2018, she covered the trial in Paris of two genocidaires, found guilty of a massacre in the village of Kabarondo on April 13, 1994: Tito Barahira and Octavien Ngenzi, sentenced on appeal to life imprisonment for “crimes against humanity” and “genocide”. According to the UN, 2,000 people were killed in Kabarondo. Recorded at Euphonia studio, Friche de la Belle de mai, Marseille, following a residency with Alphabetville, Colette Tron.
Gestos. Una colección posible, MNAV – Museo nacional de Artes Visuales, Montevideo, Uruguay. Bienalsur , 10.09.2023 to 31.12.2023
In 1958, Bruno Munari published a supplement to the Italian dictionary, integrating a type of non-verbal communication that he considered key to understanding “the speech of the Italians”. Inspired by the dictionary La mimica degli antichi investigata nel gestire napoletano, Munari developed his “dictionary of gestures” and, noticing the intense process of internationalisation that this type of non-verbal communication was undergoing, he pointed out its usefulness for visitors to Italy.
This logic of gestural communication is part of research involving disciplines such as theatre, dance or performance, but it is also present in the investigations of visual artists. The hands are associated with the everyday, with domestic chores, handicrafts, work on the land, as well as with care, caresses, love and healing. Taking up these dimensions, this curatorial proposal seeks to think about the commonality and diversity of the human condition with a group of contemporary artists who have focused part of their creative project on this singular type of gesturality.
Curated by Diana B. Wechsler (Arg) and Matilde Marin (Arg)
Come to trace through smoke – FRISE gallery, Hamburg.
Les Fumées – Carnet d’un procès pour génocide, Rwanda 1994-France 2018, 618 pages, Creaphis . June 2023. To order
THE SMOKES
DIARIES OF THE RWANDA GENOCIDE TRIAL
1994-FRANCE 2018 – TEXT BY HÉLÈNE DUMAS
In 2018, the artist Natacha Nisic attended the appeal trial in France of the two people responsible for the Tutsi genocide, Tito Barahira and and Octavien Ngenzi, in the commune of Kabarondo, Rwanda. She drew and took notes during the sessions, capturing the exchanges, moods, postures, behaviour, tensions and emotions, and she has without any claim to exhaustiveness or objectivity, in an operative incompleteness. As we go through these written images we are in turn captured. This process is crucial for what it issues of history, justice and memory. The historian Hélène Dumas, also present at the trial and an expert witness as an expert witness, provides us with the keys to understanding the trial in an introductory text. Outside the theatre of the court of assizes, her own notes and the sources from the recordings show us a different path. The notebooks, which seem to have remained in the courtroom, keep the memory alive. The continuous writing contained in these notebooks forms a work of art. This book falls somewhere between the artist’s book and the scientific book, and aesthetic interpretation and a scientific approach to the trial. It is also a powerful historical document : it is a book about genocide, but it is also part of a reflection on genocide trials in general. Through the artist’s own subjectivity, and Hélène Dumas’s commitment as a historian, this book touches our sensibilities and makes us question ourselves: we have the keys to reading, which is part of the overall history of the French nation and the world.
Autour de la préservation du vivant. OSORESAN (Mount of Fear) – Projection Festival Densités, 9th June 2023 . Meuse Grand Est
TRIENNALE d’Art Contemporain CHALEUR HUMAINE, Frac Grand large, Dunkerque, curated by Anna Colin and Camille Richert
TOO MUCH magazine, Magazine of Romantic Geography, The sacred, Tokyo, Article :After the Storm, One Voice Remains, p164.
Hans und Lea Grundig preis – for The Crown Letter – Kunst als Widerspruch, at the Rosa Luxembourg Stftung, Berlin. Watch the vide
Von hier aus, Acht künstlerische Positionen aus den Residenzen 2019–2022, Rolff Stiftung, Burggladbach, Germany, 9-12 September 2022
Pravo Ljudski Film Festival, Sarajevo – Projection of Saint-Désir – l’Exil, 9’15”, 17-22 September 2022
Rencontres Internationales Paris Berlin – Projection of Saint-Désir – l’Exil, 9’15” – Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles, Paris
The Crown Letter- festival KG+, Institut Français de Kyoto, Japan. 9 April to 8 May 2022
Contribution to the book ” Ecrans motiles”, by Sylvain Campeau, Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal. Trailer.
Contribution to the book “Annette Becker, un engagement”, Créaphis publisher
Winner of the Lea und Hans Grundig Prize 2021
Natacha Nisic could convince in the category art education with the collaborative Online-Project „The Crown Letter“, which has presented and connected artists from over the world during the Corona-Pandemie.
Von Leben in industrielandschaften II, Leopold Hoesch Museum, Düren, Germany, 12th December to 13th March 2022
The structural change in view
“Vom Leben in Industrielandschaften – Den Strukturwandel im Blick” is the second part of an exhibition project that began in fall/winter 2019/2020 with the exhibition “Vom Leben in Industrielandschaften – Eine fotografische Bestandsaufnahme” (A photographic stocktaking). This presentation was about approaching the manifestations of industrially shaped landscapes by means of the indexical and conceptual qualities of photography.
With: Bernd und Hilla Becher, Prunella Clough, Alice Creischer, Dieter Dressler, Günther Friedrich, Adolf Erbslöh, Olaf Karnik und Volker Zander, Aglaia Konrad, Carl Lohse, Antje Majewski, Wolfgang Mattheuer, Stephan Mörsch, Natacha Nisic, Silke Schatz, Carl Schütz, Wilhelm Schürmann, Franz W. Seiwert, Wilhelm Überrück, Karl Zerbe a.o.
The exhibition is a cooperation with the Brandenburg State Museum of Modern Art | Dieselkraftwerk Cottbus.
Quinzaine Photographique Nantaise, Histoire (s), 22th October to 22th November 2021
Presentation of the film Rather Die than Die, Atelier, Nantes.
Le rayon Vert – Hôtel Le belvédère, Cerbère, France, from 29th September to 30th November 2021
The Crown Letter – Biennal Sur – MAPI- Monte video
The Crown Letter – Biennal Sur – Centro Cultural- Cordoba, from 30 october to 30 december 2021
Environmental Awareness – Chapter 4: The Crown Letter
More than ever before, the pandemic crisis has brought to the fore the interdependence between human societies and the environment. Several voices reflected on this unexpected and unprecedented experience for humankind, giving rise to different actions. Among them is The Crown Letter, a work in progress presented as a collective diary of the diverse experiences in the life of the artists that make up this project, whose strong gender imprint has become one of its identity marks. The Crown Letter began in April 2020, at the onset of the Covid crisis, a time of widespread astonishment and despondency. French artist Natacha was convinced that there was an urgent need to come up with a global, collective response. Art could not be absent in the face of a catastrophe; it had to breathe and spread its oxygen in times of asphyxia. With neither resources nor institutional support, Natacha Nisic envisaged a website and immediately contacted artist friends from different countries and generations. A collective was soon organized with no leader or editorial line, driven by a common need that barely needs to be explained. While confinement affected everyone, it was clear to us all that it had a heavier impact on women, including artists. More than ever, they wanted to work and expose themselves in every sense to scrutiny and criticism. Through The Crown Letter they created a space to express and share what each of them and all of us were going through. They invented an “us” with open borders. Collectively, individualities were not blurred, but rather supported each other. As months went by, the dialogue became deeper and collective works were produced. The Crown Letter is presented as an online exhibition whose works, videos, photos, sculptures, poetry and prose are launched every week. It is a polyphonic manifesto with a tuning fork of the tempest, which over the weeks has become the intimate and collective diary of the pandemic from Mumbaï to Buenos Aires, Glasgow, London, Bucharest, Moscow, Paris…
The Crown Letter is a modest yet tenacious undertaking. It has made it past its first birthday and still continues. It will undoubtedly live on beyond the circumstances that brought it into existence.
The Crown Letter – Fondation Fiminco presented by Photodays, from 15th October to 27 november 2021
The Fondation Fiminco and Photo Days present The Crown Letter, an international collective of women artists, established by the French artist Natasha Nisic in April 2020, as an answer to the first wave of the Covid pandemic. Natasha Nisic started the project in order to help the production and diffusion of arts from women. As well as encourage exchanges, talks and solidarity, in a moment of their lives where their networks and visibility of their works were profoundly disturbed.Presented whitin the Photo Days exposition, it tries to account for the wealth of a project mixing generations of artists from various cultures through mediums as plurals as photography, drawings, txts, sounds, videos or performances.
With : SE Barnet, Maithili Bavkar, Anne Brunswic, Adriana Bustos, Claire Chevrier, Michelle Deignan, Liza Dimbleby, Sudha Padmaja Francis, Dettie Flynn, Claire-Jeanne Jézéquel, Kyoko Kasuya, Saviya Lopes, Ruth Maclennan, Ana Mendes, Maricarmen Merino, Aurelia Mihai, Manuela Morgaine, Natacha Nisic, Catherine Radosa, Luise Schröder, Esther Shalev-Gerz, Katja Stuke, Catalina Swinburn, Ivana Vollaro, Emma Woffenden.
Résister, reprendre – Les Chantiers de Marie-José Mondzain – La Commune, Théâtre d’Aubervilliers, from 25th to 26th September
Blackmail- Faire chanter – 10′ – “Faire chanter” is addressed to all spectators caught in the clutches of an economic machine whose artifices of representation use lures, virtual realities, and enchantments.this introduction to a tragi-comic opera in the process of being created is written as a tribute to Marie José Mondzain, a material for thinking about our economy of the senses and images.I owe to Marie José moments of sharing of an insane intensity, the color of which I would like to rediscover again, together, at La Commun.
L’Hyperfestival, Paris : Photodays presents The Crown Letter in two public spaces in the center of Paris:
Garden of the Tour Saint-Jacques, Paris 1, from August 1st to August 22nd
Garden Villemin, canal Saint-Martin, Paris 10, from August 1st to August 22nd
Loneliness 2, Basel Center, Videocity
12:00 min, no sound
“What could be hiding behind these closed eyes? Vivid or peaceful dreams, images, colours, sounds… Or perhaps silence, a peaceful thoughtlessness, a removal from the world.
These moments of escape from the tumult of everyday life were filmed by Natacha Nisic in the Tokyo underground back in 2004. The Japanese are known for their frantic pace of work, their strict self-control, letting their personalities give way to efficiency and devotion to a company. Curator Andrea Domesle. To read more
Centre Pompidou, Muesum of Contempory art, collections. Catalogue de Gestes.
Katalog der unbesungenen Gesten – Kolumne “Bild des Woche” – FAZ
von Katja Petrowskaja
“In unserer maskierten Zeit ist die Gestik intensiver geworden. Sie muss Sinn und Ausdruck der Mimik übernehmen. Aber auch die Hände halten soziale Askese: Sie dürfen andere nicht berühren. Die Künstlerin Natacha Nisic huldigt ihnen.”
To read more