The fabulous Transfer BLOG

Arbeit, Régis Perray

people in motion

Dear Transferistes,
thank you for the interesting artistic dialogue, yesterday in the Institut francais Düsseldorf!!! With Elsa Tomkowiak we talked about the ephemeral aspect in her work. If her art enters in one room it is already conquered by her tremendous installations. Going through these rooms the spectator is concerned with his sensual perception and his corporal presence next to the exhibitioned object.  The audience always questions Elsa if she doesn’t regret or suffer to destroy the installations after – but Elsa just answers no, “there is always coming something new after, I have so many ideas I want to realize”. Looking on Ivan Bazak’s installation, “Berni in Omas Haus” and the documentary “Rome 2006″, Emmanuel Mir emphasizes migration as an central aspect in his work. Bazak deals with migration in a complex language. His work is multimedial and narrativ. He portraits people as creative and transnational subjects, strugelling to exist in our globalized society. Maybe one correspondance between Elsa Tomkowiaks and Ivan Bazaks work is the aspect how people deal with conflicts, wether in a material way like in Elsa’s work or in an existential way like Ivan Bazak is telling.

On colour and costumes

\”Find circumstances in the antechamber\” – \”Trouver des circonstances dans l\’antichambre\”

Last sunday the PUBLIC TRANSFER took place at the Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach. The two artists Elsa Tomkowiak and Mathilde Rosier talked about their work showing the audience a lot of pictures from recent projects. Both explained how important nature is in their work and why they use it as a kind of working material. Elsa for example said that she needs to have a real confrontation with the material she uses in her installations. Her work is always related to the place where it will be exposed – after the exhibition Elsa can’t save her colourful installations, what remains after is a detailed documentation in pictures of her work. Mathilde Rosier works also with “nature”. In her performances she uses often the vocabulary of  theatre, costumes, circus and cabaret. Her art often works as a tableaux vivant, statues on stage become alive….As a spectator of Mathilde’s work you need to imagine your own story behind the scenario. Her future project is dedicated to an old and empty theatre in Mönchengladbach. Before it’s deconstruction Mathilde Rosier wants to do a live performance in the beginning of June 2010 together with a dancer to pay a last tribute to this abandoned theatre. Both artists work very different from each other – but both use nature as a principal source of inspiration and question in  a sensible way the relation between human being and nature.

Inside the french art scene today

The first TOPIC TRANSFER took place in Dortmund in the urban quarter called Westend. This part of the city is lively international, new people like us are immediatly recognised but friendly welcomed. Even in winter it seems that people spend a lot of time outside, talking or just looking who comes and goes. Inside the Projektbüro U-Westend we discussed again the french art scene today. During the next 2 hours we wondered if it’s possible to say that the french art scene of today is too self-sufficient and another reason could be a lack of interest of french people to collect as a private person (maybe with a gallery) french art. The state collects art but private people? There is no tradition of impassioned collectors like in Germany…….Is there really a kind of invisibility of french art scene today? Are french people more proud about genius like Cézanne, Pissaro or Manet? And times of the legendary Salon des Paris or the fabulous Salon des Refusés? Are people just too past-orientated ? What is the secret about the french art scene today?

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