1. Mike Kelley, Ectoplasm Photograph 13, 1978/2009. Détail d'une série de 15 photographies (C-print), 35,6 x 25,4 cm. Édition de 5 (1 épreuvre d'artiste). © Mike Kelley Foundation for the arts. Tous droits réservés. © Adagp, Paris, 2023.
Until the end of the week, the Bourse du Commerce in Paris present a group of small and big exhibitions under the name "Mythologies Américaines". With works and shows about Mike Kelley, Lee Lozano, Mira Schor and Ser Serpas, the exhibition presents a way to explore and deconstruct the creation of American mythologies, a titled given by the writer Dany Laferrière in one of his novel.
The show encompasses a period of 60 years, from the 1960s with Lee Lozano, the 1970s and 1980s for Mira Schor and Mike Kelley, and 2010-2020s for Ser Serpas. All of them collected by the Pinault Collection.
The end.
2. Ed Ruscha, Untitled, 2003, © Ed Ruscha Courtesy of the Artist
and Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London © Ed Ruscha
Ed Ruscha work "Untitled (The End)" from 2003 end and start the exhibition, while it's hanging in the Salon of the Bourse, it also presents a darker side of the American Myths, with the Hollywood cliché, with the iconic phrase "The End", which floats in a galactic void that seems to stretch to infinity.
The infinity might be the first word I had in mind when I saw the exhibition of Mike Kelley "Ghost and Spirit" in the rotunda of Tadao Ando. While the show is a touring exhibition made with the Tate Modern, the K21 and the Moderna Museet, the program of the Bourse extend into numerous rooms and levels.
In 1972, at age 18, he began studying at the University of Michigan. His decision to become an artist formed his rebellion against his family, because to be an artist “at the time was the most despicable thing you could be in American culture. Becoming an artist during those years held absolutely no value. It was like planning for your own failure”.
Thus, Mike Kelley, was born in 1954 near Detroit, in a working-class Catholic family of Irish origins. As a whole, his relationship with his parents was quite tumultuous because he decided to reject his religion and deliberately provoked them by learning how to knit and to crochet, despite his father’s injunctions.
Series and models of works
3. Mike Kelley, Black Out (Detroit River) (détail), 2001. Cibachromes montés sur panneaux, 8 parties, 67,3 x 127,3 cm chacune, dimensions totales encadrées : 71,1 cm x 1036 cm. Édition de 5 (2 épreuves d'artistes) Pinault Collection. © Mike Kelley Foundation for the arts. Tous droits réservés. © Adagp, Paris, 2023.
The exhibition is made out of series of works, from most of the period of the artist. One of the most striking works of the whole was "Black out" (Detroit River) from 2001.
Presented in the section of the exhibition dealing with themes of memory loss or blackout, both conceptually and physically, the artist drew inspiration from his visit to his childhood haunts in the Detroit suburbs. Thus exploring the idea of repressed traumatic memories.
His memories prevent access to difficult or tragic moments, but, compared to other works, he only focusses on a small, odd detail of events like performances and costume parties in high school and college, which can be potential sources of trauma.
This time around, it's a series of color photographs of various shoreline locations he took during a boat trip along the Detroit River. However, upon developing the film, he discovered a technical issue that resulted in most areas of each image turning black. Kelley interpreted these black areas as a metaphor for memory blackouts—regions he couldn't recall, possibly linked to trauma.
,%201977.tif)
4. Ira Schor, Veiled Mask (Ruffled Collar), 1977, Encre, Pigment sec, poudre métallique, gel acrylique et vernis sur papier de riz recto-verso, 30,8 x 25 x 0,3 cm, Pinault Collection
Speaking of memories, it's also the one of the faces we meet. Thus, the small but exciting presentation of the works of Mira Schor, an artist born in the United States in 1950 and currently based in New York City. While she pursued her studies in CalArts' Feminist Art Program and participated in Womanhouse during the early 1970s, she became an influential feminist art project.
Schor continued to blend "visual pleasure" and painting with philosophical, existential, and political themes throughout her career, which were deeply rooted in her personal experiences, emphasizes narration and autobiography. One of her favorite theme is to challenge the male-dominated artistic tradition by incorporating the woman's gaze.
With her presentation in the Bourse, we visit a "room of her own" a creative space in which visitors experience the passage of time in the gaze of a feminist, politically engaged woman artist. In this layout, designed by Schor herself, this group of figures expresses all the power and vitality of a group and of the individuals who constitute it.
The representation of language has formed a constant, recurring motif of her pictorial oeuvre, even before she began to write critical texts on art and the history of feminist art: “My interest in language as image has been based from the beginning on feeling that women are filled with language, and by language I mean not only feelings, hopes and fears, but also ideas, philosophies and stories, even if they are not generally considered as such.”
5. Lee Lozano, No Title, 1959, Fusain sur papier, 63,5 x 48 cm, Collection privée, © The Estate of Lee Lozano. Vue de l'exposition "Strike" de Lee Lozano, Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin, Italie, 2023. Photo Sebastiano di Persano
Speaking of shapes, of emptiness and power, of the male domination and it's tools, the works of Lee Lozano and her exhibition "Strike" present in the Gallery 2, drawings and canvases from her early career, reflecting her unique portrayal of the human body in its surroundings.
Surrealist elements, sexual imagery, and explicit slogans overlay her works, emphasizing the role of language. The exhibit features series like T"ools and Airplanes", showcasing powerful oil paintings and the evolution towards conceptual practices with "Language Pieces "from the late 1960s-early 1970s.
The show spans Lee Lozano's career (1960-1972), highlighting her defiance in the 1960s dominated by pop art, minimalism and conceptual art.
The "Strike" exhibition was previously presented at the Pinacoteca Agnelli in Turin, and it's been curated by Sarah Cosulich and Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti, in collaboration with the Pinault Collection.
.jpg)
6. Ser Serpas, Untitled (détail), 2023, Oil on cancans 215 x 298 cm, Pinault Collection, Photo: Jean Yves Lacotte, Courtesy the artist and Maxwell Graham, New York
The last and more beautiful works of the show are presented in the exhibition of Ser Serpas. The artist was featured in the 2021 "Ouverture" exhibition at the Bourse de Commerce.
Serpas grew up in Boyle Heights, a Los Angeles neighborhood known for its rich history of radical leftist activism. But during high school, she passionately engaged in community organizing, channeling her efforts towards social causes.
Having lived in New York and having two studios in Georgia and France, Serpas developed her artistic practice at Columbia University. But her works revolves around critiquing and celebrating the value of material objects. Whether utilizing discarded items found on the streets or accumulating fabric gifted by friends, Serpas transforms these materials into art, challenging conventional perceptions of value and infusing discarded items with significance.
With her installation of paintings in the Gallery 3, Serpas installation is inspired by Alejandro Amenábar’s film "The Others", especially when the voices of the ghosts echo throughout the house, as if they were coming to inhabit its abandoned furniture and objects.
The scene of this exhibition, which involves music, cinema, and fashion, constitutes a veritable echo of how the artist has chosen to reconfigure the gallery space into a fantastical, ghostly site. With paintings installed onto metal curtain rod that traverses the entire space, they float like they had just been finished and have been hung out to dry, echoing the sculptures partially covered in fabric, ghostly, unsettling presences.
Informations about the exhibition
Place: Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection
Date: September 2023 - January/February 2024
Curators: François Pinault
Ticket: Available on the website of the Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection OR at the front desk of the museum
Informations about the Bourse de Commerce
Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection
2 rue de Viarmes
75001 Paris
Phone: +33 (0)1 55 44 60 60