Arnaud Cohen

Arnaud Cohen
Wim Wenders performing with Arnaud Cohen on Cohen's Dance over me, at Kunstverein am Rosa Luxemburg Platz, Berlin,Oct 2017
Born Arnaud Cohen
(1968-01-28) January 28, 1968
Paris, France.
Nationality French
Known for Artist
Sisyphus is a woman - Arnaud Cohen's performance presented by Jean de Loisy and Vittoria Matarrese, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2016.
Sisyphus is a woman -Arnaud Cohen's performance presented by Jean de Loisy and Vittoria Matarrese, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2016.

Arnaud Cohen is a French contemporary artist, sculptor and visual artist born January 28, 1968 in Paris, France.

Biography

Presented in 2015 by the daily Le Figaro as one of the ten personalities reinventing culture in France, Arnaud Cohen began his career as a visual artist in 1997 by integrating the Marwan Hoss gallery (Paris and Brussels, Marwan Hoss was then also vice President of the International Fair of Contemporary Art).[1] At the time, Cohen's practice was all about collage, using all the existing materials, refusing to paint or carve so as to "resist any decorative temptation", as he himself stated.[2] In these collages, one finds both traces of his personal life, as well as reminders, and some pornographic images. From 2000, his work changes dramatically. These new forms emerging in his work made him considered by art critic and writer Jean-Luc Chalumeau as a "neo pop" artist. But Cohen defines himself rather as the spiritual son of both Marcel Duchamp and Marcel Broodthaers.[3]

His concern is about maximizing his work's impact on the public. It does not seek to revolutionize forms to achieve his goal. On the contrary, he kept on preferring the use of existing forms, considering them as an alphabet which, being already shared with the viewer, allows him to make his visual message immediately understandable. In this respect, his practice is close to twentieth century propaganda practices used both in the 1920s and 1930s in Russia and Germany, and also in the late 60s and in the 1970s to serve the proletarian cause (hence his exhibiting on the occasion of May 68 commemorations side by side with Gérard Fromanger, Jean-Jacques Lebel and Erró at the Salvador gallery, exhibition curated by collector Yves Cothouit),[4] but also since the 1950s to serve the commodification of goods and services. But with Cohen these tools are built at the sole service of the artist, for the only purpose of sharing with the viewer his very personal vision of today's world. Controversy is part of his vocabulary and art is there to express it. Using mythical emblems, he manages to unveil with poetry and insight the economic and social meanders.[5] Cohen can be defined as a post-koonsian artist: like Jeff Koons, he uses the popular alphabet, but, and this is the difference from his elder pair, he uses these letters to write words, words which are his but words that can be universally shared. In this sense, he is also the heir of the Situationist International art movement and more specifically of Asger Jorn and his Modifications or Embezzlements. Thus in 2007 he had enlarged a bottle of Coke and reduced airliners. The crash of these two well known elements (the bottle struck by the planes) delivers a new specific meaning. In addition, its plasticity, the iconic presence of this new object, creates a new term both obvious and complex: it shows both the current struggles embodied by the events of September 11, but also the collapse of values related to consumption, not to mention the still nascent problem of wars to come around the global issue of drinking water (it takes indeed up to 9 liters of water to produce one liter of Coke).[6] Since 2005, date of the creation of a fictional character named Jean-Paul Raynaud (and not Jean-Pierre Raynaud), archetype of the French official artist, he posted in various public places, fake political posters with ambiguous slogans mocking the incestuous links between French artists and the government's cultural agencies. All of these campaign materials (posters, badges, etc.) were acquired in 2008 by the Museum of Contemporary History, Paris.

The work of Arnaud Cohen was the subject of a monographic exhibition and a retrospective at the Museums of Sens from June to September 2015. Threatened to be censorsed, the whole exhibition was maintained thanks to the support of the International Association of Art Critics and personalities such as Elisabeth Lebovici, but many of his exhibited works got vandalized inside the museum premises.

Art Speaks For Itself (ASFI)

In 2014 Cohen creates ArtSpeaksForItself, a conceptual work that formally imitates a foundation. Although without legal existence, ASFI runs a network of residences of international curators. Cohen inaugurated in September 2014 his first residence in Paris, and the following year a second one in Milan. If he considers this work of art to be particularly utopian, aiming to reverse the roles and balance of power within the art world, he surrounded himself from the very beginning of this enterprise with real, existing, French personalities, Ministers advisors, Curators, Critics, Art Historians, Foundation and Institutional Managers, and Collectors like Sandra Hegedüs Mulliez, Jean-Pierre Biron, Maxence Alcalde, Marie-Ann Yemsi, Marie Deparis, Laurent de Verneuil, Damien Brachet or Adama Sanneh. The first guest was Wang Chunchen, curator in charge of the Chinese pavilion at the last Venice Biennale.[7] The curatorial protocol of ASFI was applied in 2018 to the feminist exhibition of the Tate dedicated to the writings of Virginia Woolf curated by Laura Smith[8] (now curator at the Whitechapel Gallery in London), and in 2015 at one of the shows exhibited by the MUNTREF, Museum of Contemporary Art in Buenos Aires. Arnaud Cohen was invited to perform this work in 2015 at Something Else off Cairo Biennale in 2015[9] and at the Dakar Biennale in 2016 by the international curator Simon Njami. It is also for this work that Cohen was invited to the 2017 Venice Biennale by Koyo Kouho (Swiss pavilion, Pro Helvetia)[10] and the same year at Biennale of South America BIENALSUR by Anibal Jozami and Diana Wechsler.[11] Among the most prestigious participants at these symposia were Anne Barlow, Artistic Director of Tate St Ives, Florence Derieux Artistic Director of the Centre Pompidou Foundation, and Galerie Hauser and Wirth of New York, Georges Didi-Hubermann, Albertine de Galbert, Rebecca Lamarche Vadel curator at the Palais de Tokyo, Enrico Lunghi Chief Curator of MUDAM, or Jean-Hubert Martin.[12]

ASFI benefited in 2016 of a public presentation at the Centre Pompidou, on the initiative of Alicia Knock as part of Museum On / Of, in 2017 at the Untref Museum of Buenos Aires and at the Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art as part of the event Protest.

Recent public exhibitions and acquisitions

Arnaud Cohen has participated in more than thirty exhibitions in the last five years and has entered several public collections, either through purchases (Museum of Contemporary History, Hôtel des Invalides, Paris) or through public commissions (Artotheques of Châtellerault, Angoulême and Poitiers).

The exhibitions and biennials in which he participates in 2017 or has participated in recent years include:

  • Internationally
  • France
    • Les Bains, Paris, 2017.
    • Galerie Valérie Delaunay, 2017.
    • Artothèque du Havre, Le Havre, 2017.
    • Palais de Tokyo, 2016.
    • Kepler Art Conseil, 2016.
    • Monastère royal de Brou, Bourg-en-Bresse, 2015.
    • Musée de Sens et Palais synodal de Sens, 2015.
    • Fondation Vasarely, 2015.
    • YIA Art Fair, 2015.
    • FYOW Mairie de Montreuil, Montreuil, 2013.
    • Gaité Lyrique, Paris, 2013.
    • APACC, Montreuil, 2013.
    • Galerie 22,48m², Paris, 2012.
    • Galerie Talmart, 2012.
    • Galerie A Rebours, 2012.
    • In & Out, pop-up museum, Ivry, 2012.
    • Galerie Laure Roynette, Paris, 2012.
    • Galerie Salvador
    • School Galerie
    • Galerie Taïss
    • Galerie W
    • Galerie Xavier Nicolas
    • et avec certaines de ces galeries : YIA Art Fair (en 2015 comme artiste invité), Cutlog Art Fair, ShowOff Art Fair, Slick Art Fair.
    • FRAC Poitou-Charentes (fonds des Artothèques d'Angoulême et de La Rochelle)
    • Centre d'art contemporain de Châtellerault, Châtellerault.

Interviews, bibliography and critical texts

Links to the latest interviews, the latest critical or monographic texts in French (2018-2010):

  • Claude Guibert in Imago-encyclopédie audiovisuelle de l'art contemporain February 2018
  • Susana Reinoso in Clarin (Argentina), September 20, 2017
  • Arianna di Cori in La Repubblica (Italia) July 7, 2016
  • Claude Guibert in Imago-encyclopédie audiovisuelle de l'art contemporain 2016
  • France Culture, Cohen interviewed by Céline du Chéné, Mauvais Genre, September 2015 (starts at 1: 13.13)
  • Claude Guibert in imago-encyclopédie audiovisuelle de l'art contemporain juillet 2015
  • France Culture, Cohen interviewed by Aude Lavigne, Les Carnets de la Création, july 2015
  • Paul Ardenne in Arnaud Cohen Remission / Retrospection, catalog of the double monographic exhibition at the Synodal Palace and the Museum of Sens
  • Damepipi.tv, Cohen interviewed by Yvette Neliaz, june 2015
  • Elisabeth Lebovici in Le Beau Vice june 2015
  • Patrick Scemama in La République de l'Art june 2015
  • Maxence Alcalde in Osskoor june 2015
  • Claude Guibert in imago-encyclopédie audiovisuelle de l'art contemporain july 2013
  • Julie Crenn in revue LAURA N°14 october 2012
  • Maxence Alcalde in Osskoor september 2012
  • Claude Guibert in imago-encyclopédie audiovisuelle de l'art contemporain september 2012
  • Christophe Donner in le Monde, 04 february 2012
  • Marc Lenot in lunettesrouges.blog.lemonde.fr 2012
  • Thierry Hay in Culturebox France Télévisions 2012Marie Deparis-Yafil in Vu et revue Part VI 2012
  • Maxence Alcalde in Osskoor january 2012
  • Julie Crenn in Inferno 2012
  • Valery Poulet in performArts 2012
  • Valery Poulet in Transversales 2012
  • Claude Guibert in imago-encyclopédie audiovisuelle de l'art contemporain january 2012
  • Marie Elisabeth de la Fresnaye in Beautiful and delights 2012
  • Ariane Cloutier in Conference "Spaces for the artist's life: internments at work" held at the University of Franche-Comté, Besançon, September 23 and 24, 2011
  • Valery Poulet in Transversales 2010

Monographs and critical texts before 2010:

  • IDEAT, february 2009 n°66 : "le meilleur de la création française contemporaine": p. 30
  • Figaro Madame, 17 january 2009 : "l'expo incontournable" p. 20
  • 1968 a moving world: December 2008 (Museum of Contemporary History - BDIC - Syllepse Editions, 21, 242-244, 292), biographical text of 3 pages and 5 reproductions.
  • Art, creative exchanges: october 2008 (Fabrice Peletier, Pyramyd Editions, p. 100 et 101)
  • ArtScape : 22 october 2008 : la petite foire qui monte.
  • Le Monde, Harry Bellet : 21 june 2008 : 68-Tard
  • Metro : 07 may 2008 : Que faire ce week-end en Île-de-France
  • Radio France International, Françoise Dentinger : 11 april 2008 : L'art en eaux troubles
  • Soir3, Marie Drucker : 8 april 2008 : L'art en eaux troubles
  • PS 86 (revue web de la fédération socialiste de la Vienne), Claude Husson : october 2007 : A Ségolène Royal's installation
  • French Morning (NYC), Marie Camille Descamps : september 2007 : Premières françaises à Hell's kitchen
  • French Culture.org, French Embassy in the USA: September 2007: Full View: French Artist in New York

References

  1. ↑ "Dix personnalités qui réinventent la culture". FIGARO (in French). 2015-02-06. Retrieved 2018-01-09.
  2. ↑ Monnin, Françoise (June 2007). "Arnaud Cohen détournement de valeurs". Artension.
  3. ↑ Parent, Francis (2008). Les années 68; un monde en mouvement. Paris: Museum of Contemporary History. pp. 242–244. ISBN 978-2-84950-18-70.
  4. ↑ Bellet, Harry (20 June 2008). "68-tard". Le Monde.
  5. ↑ Guide été 2009. FRAC Poitou-Charentes. 2009. p. 38. ISBN 978-2-905258-11-3.
  6. ↑ "Les femmes du Kerala contre Coca-Cola". Le Monde diplomatique (in French). 2005-03-01. Retrieved 2018-01-09.
  7. ↑ Platt, Kevin Holden (2013-06-11). "China's Venetian Quandary: Chinese Artists". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-01-09.
  8. ↑ Tate. "Virginia Woolf: An Exhibition Inspired By Her Writings – Exhibition at Tate St Ives | Tate". Tate. Retrieved 2018-01-09.
  9. ↑ "28-11-2015 13:30:06 - Don't miss the Opening of Something Else tomorrow ..." Arts Collaboratory. Retrieved 2018-01-09.
  10. ↑ Switzerland, deimos.ch - Zurich,. "biennials.ch – Pro Helvetia's platform to present the Swiss contributions to the Venice Biennials". biennials.ch. Retrieved 2018-01-09.
  11. ↑ "(ES) Participación francesa en la BIENALSUR | Institut français d'Argentine". ifargentine.com.ar (in French). Retrieved 2018-01-09.
  12. ↑ "Art Speaks For Itself". Art Speaks For Itself (in French). Retrieved 2018-01-09.
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