AUTOMOTIVE IndUsTrY In MExIcO Ready to Overtake - ProMéxico

66 Negocios ProMéxico | The Lifestyle Negocios ProMéxico | The Lifestyle 67
1 portrait of michel blancsubé
2, 3, 4 poule! sights of the exhibition
— Poule!, the exhibition you curated for the Jumex
Collection this year, stands out because it has no theoretical
interpretations to guide the selection of the pieces, but
is rather the result of a much more bold process. What
outcome do you think this will create?
There is obviously a critical position in this process. I have always
tended to resist the form of curating that is based on a speech or a
strong theme that then looks for works of art that support this specific
theory. It is a game on how far we implement the works.
I have also seen many thematic exhibitions of late; however, I have
a hard time linking the works with an announced theme by the curator.
Curators, in many cases, ultimately exhibit whatever they feel like
showing. I did the opposite. I admitted I was going to set up whatever I
felt like exhibiting, without emphasizing one claim over another.
The works obviously make a lot of noise; they talk incessantly
and the exhibition becomes a cacophony when you collect 68 pieces
or more. You must learn how to listen to them and bring a little order
into the chaos.
— How did you make the selection?
As Registrar of the Jumex Collection, I have seen everything that
has come into the collection, piece by piece, over the last 10 years.
There are pieces that strike me more than others and I get this
idea in my head, I consider “I would like to activate it someday.”
Over time, I gathered these ideas and bring them together in one
eye-catching presentation.
Another strategy is that there are no cards on display. This is
because every time I visit a museum I perceive an attitude that
reflects a side effect of snobbery. People often stand in front of a
painting with a blank stare; that is to say, the work does not cause
any reaction until the viewer reads the name of the artist and their
faces suddenly light up if the name triggers any type of recognition.
My intention in exhibiting these pieces without cards is to say: take
a first look at the naked work without all of those filters that instruct
you on how to look at it, and then, look to see who the artist is if the
piece really interests you. The information is available. The layout
and fact sheets are all there.
3 4
— What do you expect to happen to viewers?
I have been strongly influenced by Art as Experience, a text John
Dewey wrote in the 1930s. What I seek with this particular exhibition
and with my work is to have people walk into the halls with
their problems and concerns and be able to forget them for at
least 10 to 15 minutes. And doing so, allow themselves to become
infected by the environment and by the works. I want them to take
a vacation from themselves. I am happy if I manage to succeed at
this. I feel it is a gift of life.
— What do you think of the plurality and sense of dispersion
that characterizes art today?
Art history is the world of isms: Futurism, Cubism and many isms.
We have nothing like this today. There is a trend among American
art critics that identifies a type of “Neo-conceptualism,” but the
concept is really related to individualities. It is the idea of the star
system. These are individual pathways, although the artists come
together as a group.
aBout the eXhiBition
• This is the first time 57 of the 68 pieces in the
exposition are on public exhibit. Blancsubé did this
in order to keep from repeating himself, as this is his
seventh curatorship of the Jumex Collection.
• Francis Alÿs, Iñaki Bonillas, Lawrence Carroll,
Andreas Gursky, Daniel Guzmán, Steven Klein,
Robert Mapplethorpe, Hedi Slimane, Christopher
Williams and Richard Wright are just a few of the
artists included in Poule!
• The exhibition venue –9,600 square feet (900
square meters)–, is the gallery located next door to
the Jumex factory facilities in Ecatepec, Estado de
México.
— Why the name Poule!?
The entrance to the exhibition shows a photograph that Robert Mapplethorpe
took of William Burroughs in 1981. Burroughs is one of the
many fathers of the beat generation, along with Ginsberg and Kerouac.
Close to Mexicans, this phenomenon has many fans and artists
working around it in Mexico.
The photograph shows Burroughs holding a rifle and shooting into
the clouds. There is a story behind the picture. Burroughs killed his
wife while drunk and playing William Tell in 1951. He put a glass on
her head and shot her in the head instead of shooting the glass. Such as
this story, there are many anecdotes under the table around the pieces
that are part of the exhibit.
But beyond this personal story, I associate the photograph with
the ball-trap or skeet shooting. In this sport, when you shoot the skeet
you yell out “pull!” Several French and Belgians claim you should pronounce
it as “poule!,” that is to say, “chicken.” So I named the exhibition
like so in face of doubt, and also in an effort to choose a somewhat
ridiculous title to draw people’s attention. n