Art Encounters 2017 Exhibitions:
Urban Insights

In his artworks, Julien Prévieux (b. 1974) merges myriads of media and practices such as drawing, painting, video, performance, writing, choreography. Focusing on the synergy between the body and the machine with a precise sense of wit and criticism, Prévieux’s work reassesses motion, associating overlooked human patterns and gestures with technological innovations.

Selected exhibitions: The Elements of Influence (and a Ghost), Blackwood Gallery, Toronto (2017, solo); What Shall We Do Next?, RISD Museum of Art, Providence (2016, solo); What Shall We Do Next?, DiverseWorks, The MATCH, Houston (2016); Des corps schématiques, Espace 315, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2015, solo); Then they form us, Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Santa Barbara (2015); Nervous Systems. Quantified Life and the Social Question, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2014); The Crime was Almost Perfect, Witte de With – Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (2014); 10 puissance 120, Frac Basse-Normandie, Caen (2012, solo); Think Park, Centre d’art contemporain, La synagogue de Delme (2008, solo); Comment – No Comment, Domaine de Kerguéhennec, Centre d’art Contemporain, Bignan (2008, solo); Management of Change and Conflict, galerie Jousse Entreprise, Paris (2007, solo).
He participated in the 10th International Istanbul Biennale and the 2015 Lyon Biennale.

French artist Julien Prévieux questions the many “worlds” of work, management, economics, politics, control systems, state-of-the-art technologies, and the industry of culture.

With Le Lotissement, Prévieux produces a series of replicas of sheds, which served as refuges for famous inventors, musicians and philosophers to work (e.g. Gustav Mahler, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Alexander Graham Bell and Virginia Woolf). These are in fact places in which major intellectual and cultural works emerged.

He reproduces them identically, painting them grey to make them look like models produced with computer software. It is alternately a tribute to architecture, a monument to the history of inspiration, a simple document and the didactic practices of museum policy.

Images:

1. Julien Prévieux, Portrait

2. Julien Prévieux, Le lotissement (Housing Estate 2008), MDF, acrylic paint, approximately 250 × 200 × 150 cm each, courtesy of Jousse Entreprise Gallery, photo credits: Laurent Lecat