Gallery Ultracontemporaine
Text by Elena Hansen
The Gallery Ultracontemporaine is a pulsing art format by
Thierry Geoffroy/COLONEL which consists of critical, site specific
art placed in an art fair setting. Geoffroy has worked with the
ultracontemporary since 1987, and before that there were similar
themes displayed in his “moving exhibition type unsolicited”. It has
been shown in galleries since 1990 and evolved to focus on art fairs
later on. The format offers people the opportunity to buy so-called
“Emergency art”[1] on the day it was made, if bought in this 24-hour
period the collector can buy the piece for less.
The artwork is
highly dynamic, and the freshness of the pieces can be seen as both
an investment piece, and a collector’s item that is a result of
society in their time. The in-time-ness of the artwork means that
the artwork is a true emblem of the time and place it was created.
Thus, collecting from Gallery Ultracontemporaine is valuable in a
different way than other artworks. Politically, socially and
artistically the work Gallery Ultracontemporaine offers collectors
is a preserved item from a known and relevant context. The artwork
is an avant garde opportunity arranged by Geoffroy, the pieces serve
as excellent talking pieces and the renewed circulation and
visibility of the piece changing possession leads to longevity in
the debate surrounding the works intention. The short timeframe in
which the piece is considered new by Gallery Ultracontemporaine’s
standards offers collectors the exciting possibility of “catching
the piece in the now”.
Collectors are at the heart of this format, the objective
being to place emergency art into a sphere of influencers. This has
a dual function, to bolster the artist’s income and to insert
emergency art into this setting in an exciting form. This format
also helps to propel the artists other formats. The name Gallery
Ultracontemporaine (French for “ultracontemporary”[2]) establishes
the function of the format as a commercial enterprise, disguising
the core of the format’s educational objective. The Gallery should
operate as a way for the artist to use the fast-paced, changing
quality of the art fair as a mode for pushing emergency art into
this different and financial-based sphere of the art landscape;
changing the artworld’s culture to intuitively turn a profit while
feeding a conceptual alarm bell into these stages of high art.
The concept of the ultracontemporary is Geoffroy’s proposition to
effective critical art made in the now. It is a solution to the
problem that contemporary art is in alarming delay. It is the
artist's observation that contemporary art as it’s presented in the
artworld today does not deal confrontationally with issues that
are important in the present. There is a gap in the exposition of
art to the public and the ultracontemporary seeks to solve this lack
and bring the artworld onto the issues that are important and should
be dealt with now before it’s too late. Many art exhibitions are
centred on relevance, spotlighting different themes from the past
that are ‘relevant’ to the present.This creates an environment that
fails to deal with the nowness of crises and action required to face
and correct the problems we seek to rectify. Art has the incredible
quality of conveying truths and attitudes and questioning the world
in subtle or dominant ways. It has the power to move people, a
powerful function that has caused it to be vulnerable to censorship
and destruction in the wrong hands ?. However, contemporary
art ends up censoring itself in the artworld due to the delay in its
exposition.
It is the removal of relatability that has weakened the message that
art can deliver, this stimulus being the focus of Geoffroy’s
intentions with the Gallery Ultracontemporaine format. Geoffroy uses
the example of the work of Manet, specifically the painting “The
Execution of Maximilien”. In the painting, the artist shows the
execution of a man by the army. This creates a dysphoria in that the
artist addresses the dire circumstances of the execution, but only
in the aftermath of its occurrence. In this way, the artist is only
confronting the issue once it is too late to alter any of the events
that have transpired. The emergency is not addressed in the moment
and thus it is allowed to happen. Geoffroy seeks to stop this irony
of art with the ultracontemporary.
The format is situated in art fairs to reach collectors and thus to
work in an additional space than the museum. Through his many
formats, the artist tries to target the whole scope of the artworld
and further through onto the public. The Gallery Ultracontemporaine
is a force to infiltrate these venues of financially driven platform
and emergency art. The element of business and the excitements
surrounding the actors and using the function of art as an industry
to get critical commentaries across is actually a well thought out
way of engaging with the true themes important to Geoffroy’s art
oeuvre while still participating in the art market industry action.
It is a form of education hidden in a functioning business model.
With the production of Gallery Ultracontemporaine as a multipliable
establishment within any art fair, the format can be franchised and
its ideas embedded in a complex constellation of different venues,
spreading out the themes of emergency art to the masses in a subtle,
easy-to-digest manner. The format presents a viable mode for
bringing emergency art into the commercial artworld and as a result
changes the face of the contemporary art scene immeasurably.
In 2002, the format was carried out through Galerie Sparwasser as
part of ARTFORUM Berlin. The format operated inside the gallery and
in a booth at the art fair. The work created in this space was
exemplary of the originality involved in the creation of emergency
artwork. The public could choose newspaper clippings to have printed
onto their t-shirts, creating a commentary on the nature of fashion
trends and how the news is covered. Newspaper clippings play a large
role in the application of the Gallery Ultracontemporaine format and
are tools for the artist to highlight propaganda and hiding by the
media, adding captions, annotations and drawings to highlight the
function of the media as a creator of apathy amongst the people or
spray of propaganda. Themes include an overview of media tactics to
create desensitisation and overexposure to crises in the public, as
well as locating the purpose of think-pieces with fixed narratives
to influence public opinion. The base of this format is a highly
critical and catered approach to understanding and consequently
ridding the people of the negative influences of centralized control
by mass media. Exposing how the narratives of today are exploited
works in duality with exhibiting as soon as possible, so they can
incite debate while the topics are still hot and garnering
attention.
The gallery is a responsive, active format; the site and context of
the location paying into the stimulus of the content of the art
created. In São Paulo Brazil, in Galeria Emma Thomas the format was
presented as a solo show, called #immediateattention. Geoffroy
included his powerful slogan-bearing tent installation in the
gallery in 2016. The reflection of themes from the streets of the
city, extracted opinions of people of the area and relevant
newsworthy events play into the content on show and available for
purchase in the format. The relationship between the host site’s
cultural location and the work produced is one in synergy: the
active commentary building up an experienced and refined impression
of the situational hazards of emergency related to the surrounding
areas. It is also a time capsule evolving over time to paint a
picture of the structure of emergencies in the location at the time
of the event, with important contextual issues finding new ground
and meaning in their presentation as art pieces. One
cardboard-backed artwork carried the confrontational proposition “IN
SÃO PAULO, I TOOK A SHOWER OF 5 MINUTES THINKING ABOUT THE DEAD
VOLUME”. Statements like these underscore the impression Geoffroy’s
commentary leaves. The exhibition included the presence of ten local
artists, who were invited to express their take on the now in the
now.
Gallery Ultracontemporaine has also been activated two years in a
row in South Africa and in Copenhagen as part of Code Art Fair in
2017, with Gallery Sabsay, a Copenhagen-based gallery. Presented in
Cape Town, as a boothe in an art fair, it created a cultured and
layered presentation of the critical themes needing to be addressed
in the given context. The constant nature of creation and the
replenishment of works from day to day establish a grounded overview
of emergencies facing the world in that timeframe. The crux of the
format is the expression of pressing issues and a localized
reflection of matters of contextual importance. “This is about
political art and what its function is in society,” Geoffroy added
in an article by Design Indaba. “It’s better to show them while they
happen so that we can compete with other perceptions and
information.” (designindaba.com, 2017).
Recently, the Gallery Ultracontemporaine format was included in
Geoffroy’s “Awareness Muscle Training Center” exhibition at Museum
Villa Stuck in Munich, Germany. This included newspaper clippings
pasted on cartons and blown up pictures featuring cultural links to
the area. The gallery also has a virtual presence via a Facebook
page that has been active since 2015. This allows the artist
to engage with a global audience and incite debate and discourse on
issues that are changing and developing in the present moment.
The strategic inclusion of the Gallery Ultracontemporaine within art
fairs can function as an entirely unique phenomenon that inspires to
change the nature of the contemporary artworld and bring collectors
in on the opportunity of buying fresh, “hot” artworks which deal
with complex and cultural problems. It is an amalgamation of the
artist’s efforts to bring emergency art to a sphere of artistic
relevance and attention, and to move away from a passive way of
presenting art. The vibrant, buzzing collector environment mirrors
Geoffroy’s artistic haste and he makes use of this tempo against
itself; or more accurately, he joins it.
[1] Emergency art refers to art that is made to highlight crises and
happenings in the world that require our immediate attention and
action. Examples of topics presented in emergency art include
xenophobia, hypocrisy, propaganda, war, climate change and
censorship. Emergency art is a way to address what is going on in
the world in a confrontational and active manner, and to inspire
change through debate and awareness. Through the dissemination and
exhibition of this type of art, it can work to find a solution
before it is too late to fix the issues presented.
[2] Ultracontemporary refers to the notion that the contemporary as
we know it for contemporary art institutions is in delay and in
order for truly gripping, pulsing art to be created it must be made
in the now, about the now.The format is a way to express the
urgencies needing to be addressed in a non-panicky way. It is a
hidden strategy to convey the burning fact that we have to react to
the issues the world faces now. The relationship between emergency
art and the ultracontemporary is not a necessary part of the format
and the ultracontemporary can express other themes as well, it has
just not at this moment in time.
Text by Elena Hansen