Josèfa Ntjam and LVMH Métiers d'Art : Une Cosmogonie d’Océans

Posted

 

As I already explained in a November 2023 post, Josèfa Ntjam is a young artist I first came across when helping with preparations for Alternating Currents, the inaugural exhibition at Parallel Circuit, in Tehran. Her work was to be included in the exhibition, and I found myself translating the text of one of her videos (as it happens, later shown at FRAC Ile de France's 40th birthday exhibition, Gunaikeion, in Romainville), so it could be subtitled for Iran, and taking a train to her home town to pick up some works (cushions) for dispatch there. I've taken an interest in her work since then.

In 2023, Josèfa was selected to spend a year in residence with LVMH's Métiers d'Art program, the aim of which is to bring top-level artisans and young artists closer together. Josèfa spent her year with an organisation called the Jade Groupe, and, as the LVMH Métiers d'Art website explains, 'envisioned sculptures nearly two metres high, even though the company is specialized in small components and jewellery for major luxury houses. This challenge of scale was compounded by technical and production difficulties that prompted Jade technicians to rethink their tools, design and production processes, and range of materials, colours, and finishes… Josèfa Ntjam’s works in metal are produced in colours which were hitherto unthinkable for the artisans of Jade Groupe, acquired by LVMH Métiers d’Art in 2021.'

The residence led to Une Cosmogonie d’Océans, a 5-day exhibition of fascinating metal works in a disused building near the Bourse in Paris. I went along yesterday, the first day of spring both on the calendar and in reality - suddenly the blossom is out, Paris is warm and café terraces are packed - and indeed Noruz for my Persian friends.

Next step for Josèfa is 'Swell of Spæc(i)es', an exhibition, at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia & Palazzina Canonica, due to run in parallel to the Venice Biennale this year. This link is to an introduction to the upcoming Venice exhibition.

This link is to an explanatory text, in English, about Une Cosmogonie d’Océans, on the LVMH Métiers d’Art website.

And here are some of the photos I took at the exhibition.









Added in May 2024: Josèfa has, since her exhibition opened in Venice, been getting a lot of good press. Here's a link to an interview in Wallpaper.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Palais de Tokyo's summer exhibitions, 2023

Posted
Image
The Palais de Tokyo has no air-conditioning, and some of its galleries have glass roofs, so in the summer the place can get very hot. I well remember, during Prince.sse.s des Villes , the sprawling summer exhibition of 2019, it was stifling. It has, however, an abundance of labyrinthine, relatively rarely-used underground spaces in bare concrete. The drop from the avenue in front of the Palais to the streets at the back, at river level, is considerable. (The long flights of stairs are familiar to me from visits to the Iranian embassy's visa department.) I've no idea how many buried levels the building actually has. Anyway, this year, the curators have had the clever idea of going down nearly as deep as possible, creating a new pathway starting at least two floors below street level, where it's dark and cool. Exhibition halls on the main and upper floors aren't used at all; only the ticket offices, shop and restaurant are still open. Guards and visitors can all be gratef
Read more

nerd_funk and the emergence of a new genre

Posted
Image
nerd_funk is the name of an ambitious, multi-faceted project by Ali Eslami and Mamali Shafahi. Ali and Mamali are both Iranian by birth but now based mainly in Europe. Ali is from a new-technology background but has gravitated towards art, and will soon take up a two-year residency at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. Mamali is from a fine-arts background, but has developed a strong interest in new technologies, now often at the heart of his practice. Their profiles fit together neatly, like the pieces of a puzzle; this helps explain the unique strengths of their partnership in a project that combines art and high-tech. Shared interests Mamali and Ali discovered they shared a fascination with the impact on our lives, now and in the future, for good or ill, of new and emerging technologies, along with the now-ubiquitous phenomena, such as social media, they have made possible, and it was this shared interest that cemented their partnership. They're interested in how, already, technol
Read more

Anna Uddenberg: an interesting new development

Posted
Image
Anna Uddenberg is a Swedish artist whose work has, I think, something quite original, distinctive and perceptive to say about the image of women in certain, specific currents of consumer culture that might otherwise be overlooked. I hadn't seen much of her recently, but she now has an exhibition, at her Berlin Gallery, Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler (or K-T Z), of totally new works focusing, this time, not on women but on men. The resulting woodcarvings are an interesting and quite surprising development, and add to what seems to be almost a 'fashion' for reliefs in art at the moment. This is the link to the new exhibition, 'Big Baby' , at K-T Z. This is the link to a video about the new work, on Vimeo , but the video is also on the gallery website. This is the direct link to the page about Anna Uddenberg on the gallery site. The following are some photos of Anna Uddenberg's new and previous work, 'borrowed' from K-T Z.
Read more