COSMOS

Nicolas Bourriaud, 2002

Published on the Palais de Tokyo website for the Cosmos exhibition, 2002

EG : How would you situate Boris Achour in the generation to which he belongs?

NB : This generation of artists is characterised by two fundamental theoretical elements: conceiving the work of art as a synopsis, and the exhibition as a production tool. The synopsis of the work of art responds to a world that is experienced as a fiction whose scenarios are written by political power, by the multiple conventions that govern our daily lives. Art is the editing table for these alternative scenarios.

EG : It’s a bit like how the Actions-peu^[1] and photographs Sommes^[2], Boris Achour’s minimal interventions in urban space.

NB : The Actions-peu [Actions-few], the Aligneur de pigeons [The Pigeons Aligner]^[3] for example, discreetly disrupt everyday life. It’s a « gentle guerrilla war », as the artist puts it, against habit and convention, making the most of all the elements of social signage.

EG : Within this system, what is an exhibition ?

NB : For his exhibition Générique^[4], Boris Achour transformed the gallery into a film set with its various stages. This approach is similar to that of Pierre Huyghe, who turns his exhibitions into a casting office or pirate television, or to the convivial « stages » constructed by Rikrit Tiravanija. These exhibitions are « films without cameras », to use Philippe Parreno’s expression, in which visitors compose their own sequences, with a degree of autonomy in the construction of meaning.

EG : Boris Achour’s interventions, the way he hijacks objects and infuses them with new meaning, also play on a poetic and comic dimension.

NB : The Cosmos installation we are showing at the Palais de Tokyo is based on the comic effect of repetition. Visitors watch one video, called Cosmos, and then a second, also called Cosmos. He or she is plunged into a repetitive system that evokes both Buster Keaton and minimal art, since the shelf of this ‘video club’ is reminiscent of the aesthetic of Donald Judd.

EG : What does the title refer to?

NB : In the etymological sense, cosmos is order. Every video store classifies products according to cinematographic genre: in this installation, crime thrillers, science fiction, porn and art films are all called Cosmos. These genres, with their more or less immutable rules, represent the script determinations on which the authors work. It’s a metaphor for our daily lives: we embroider on pre-existing social scenarios. Cosmos is also, of course, a reference to Witold Gombrowicz’s novel, which is a metaphysical detective story in which the hero investigates the world around him on the basis of apparently banal signs – but which, when put together, create a frightening reality. But isn’t that an image of the artist? For me, an artist is a « semionaut »^[5] :he or she materialises an itinerary through signs, assembling elements of everyday reality to produce meaning.

EG – Boris Achour also takes the figure of the artist with a great deal of derision. The artist Boris Achour « Unknown throughout the world, he can do nothing for you ».^[6].

NB : His work takes as its theoretical starting point the disappearance of political utopias and asks the question: « What is to be done? It is no longer a question of overturning social reality from top to bottom, but of taking note of its structures and trying to make them work differently, to inhabit them.

EG : The role of the artist today appears contradictory if we compare these two statements by Boris Achour: « I’m afraid that art is very sterile » and : « Art seems to me to be a place where you can invent your life, your relationship with others and with the world.

NB: The question of the social utility of artistic activity is very much alive today. Boris Achour’s response is one of disruption, of « soft guerrilla warfare », of local utopia.

Notes
1- Les Actions peu, entreprises entre 1993 et 1995 ont été photographiées ou filmées.
2- Sommes , 1999, série de photographies réalisées à Los Angeles dans le cadre de « La Villa Médicis hors les Murs ».
3- Aligneur de pigeons, 1996, photocopies laser. La disposition de graines en ligne droite dans un square public permet d’aligner ses pigeons, normalement éparpillés.
4- Boris Achour, Générique, galerie Chez Valentin, mai 2000.
5- Entre sémiologue et cosmonaute. Sémios : le signe, Nautos : qui se déplace, qui voyage, qui construit un parcours.
6- Tract réalisé à l’occasion de l’exposition Utopie ou l’auberge espagnole, Centre d’art contemporain de Reuil-Malmaison, septembre 1997.