As told to Anaël Pigeat

Curator Annabelle Ténèze on her exhibition for Paris+ par Art Basel

This fall, the incoming Louvre-Lens director will bring together Claudia Comte, Meriem Bennani, Zanele Muholi, and Joël Andrianomearisoa in the Tuileries garden

‘When people ask me how I define myself, I say that I'm a historian and an art historian – because history and art are intimately linked. I'm originally from the Limousin region, specifically Oradour-sur-Glane, a village that was wiped out by Nazi soldiers on June 10, 1944. Obviously, this creates a very special relationship with history. I'm also fortunate to have access to artists; sharing this opportunity, particularly with younger people, is fundamental to me.

‘From 2012 to 2016, I was director of the contemporary art museum at the Château de Rochechouart. The subject of equality is of great concern to me, and this was an opportunity to show a large number of women artists. Here, I presented exhibitions devoted to Carolee Schneemann, Laure Prouvost, as well as other figures who are very important to me, such as Kent Monkman and Eduardo Basualdo.

Jardin des Tuileries. Photograph by Marion Berrin for Art Basel.
Jardin des Tuileries. Photograph by Marion Berrin for Art Basel.

‘In Toulouse, where I've been running Les Abattoirs since 2016 [Tenèze will take over as director of the Louvre-Lens in autumn 2023], we've set up itinerant artistic projects such as ‘I Was Born a Foreigner’, which took the form of 25 exhibitions throughout the region, and ‘Water Horizons’ along the Canal du Midi, with work on a sailing barge. This summer, we’ve organized ‘Mountains and Artists’ along the GR10 long-distance hiking trail. Alongside our solo shows, we’ve staged thematic exhibitions rooted in societal issues: public art and feminism with Niki de Saint Phalle, psychiatry with François Tosquelles, exile with Pablo Picasso. We've even staged a dialogue between The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, which date back to the early 16th century, and contemporary works.

Annabelle Ténèze at jardin des Tuileries. Photographs by Marion Berrin for Art Basel.
Annabelle Ténèze at jardin des Tuileries. Photographs by Marion Berrin for Art Basel.

‘This fall, for Paris+ par Art Basel and in collaboration with the Musée du Louvre, I'm preparing a new exhibition at the Tuileries, following on from the one I curated last year. A call for projects has been launched, open to all galleries, not just those selected for the fair. From these submissions, I will make a selection in coordination with the Paris+ par Art Basel team and the Musée du Louvre. My choices are obviously determined by this very specific location. The garden has a strong political dimension, inherited from its history. And it is itself an open-air museum, featuring sculptures from the Modern to the contemporary period. There are works by Jean Dubuffet, Germaine Richier and Giuseppe Penone, for example. When I walk from one grove to the next, I realize that the gardeners have experimented here and there – they even bring in goats to graze on the grass!

‘Last year, many of the projects questioned the form of art in public space. This raised the question of who expresses themselves in the public space and, in turn, who doesn't. I'm very interested in these reflections. They follow on from what I've done previously, and from the public work I'm currently preparing with Laure Prouvost for the Massy-Palaiseau station. Among the various proposals I’ve received this year, several works question what it means to live and inhabit the world today, whether as an animal or a human being, on a planet that is dramatically changing. Water is present on several occasions, including in projects not intended for ponds.

Drawing an analogy to art as a cybernetic process – and the slog of recent clickbait headlines warning of AI’s threat to the role of the artist – Arcangel offers up a working thesis: ‘My thoughts are that art doesn’t have much to do with the thing; it’s everything that surrounds the thing.’ He then intimates that, in part, this is why he is interested in his RTYI content existing as art. As such, the videos ‘will be subject to a different timescale,’ he notes. They will live on YouTube as junk content while also testifying, in the form of art, to the runaway ‘amalgamations of people and algorithms’ enabled by early-2020s tech, long after that tech’s novelty has faded and YouTube’s cloud centers have gone dark.

Discover more related content below:

Clément Delépine: ‘It’s time for culture to break down barriers’

Clément Delépine: ‘It’s time for culture to break down barriers’

Stories

The director of Paris+ par Art Basel unveils the highlights of the forthcoming 2023 edition

Discover the public program for the second edition of Paris+ par Art Basel

Discover the public program for the second edition of Paris+ par Art Basel

Stories

Artistic activations will take place at six iconic venues around the city and will be free of charge

Public program

Public program

Paris+ par Art Basel extends beyond the walls of the Grand Palais Éphémère. Discover our public program across Paris