**During the week, curator and art critic, Nicolas Trembley, is based in Geneva where he manages the Syz Collection that was started in the early ’80s by Eric and Suzanne Syz. On weekends however, Trembley is back in Paris where he lives with his freshly-married partner, the artist Matthew Lutz-Kinoy, and finds time to concentrate on more personal projects like curating Mingei and kitsch German ceramics; the purpose of both being rooted in challenging the mechanisms in the art world.
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Collecteurs: You predominantly work as a curator and art critic. How do these two practices compliment each other? Does their professional proximity ever complicate or impede one or the other?
Nicolas Trembley: I’m not an art critic in the traditional sense. I didn’t study art history, but sociology and anthropology of images. My writing style is journalistic. I do not write theory, but reading it is essential to understanding the development of contemporary thinking in art. Traditionally, in institutions, curators were also art critics. But art critics do not always curate.
I was not a student of curatorial studies either. I became a curator when I had to produce exhibitions. I would say that the two practices of art curation and art criticism are intertwined in my work because I’m also interested in exhibition history and the context where it appears in the projects I run.
I curate exhibitions in institutions, as well as a long term private art collection in Geneva, the Syz Collection. My research, of course, fluctuates from one to another, but the collection is something quite specific with a certain focus and has relations to the art market. My personal research is broad and navigates through craft and art displays, for example.
C: What made you get into contemporary art after having completed degrees in sociology and anthropology?
NT: In 1985, during my studies at Lausanne University in Geneva, I worked as an intern for what was then called the 1st International Video Week Festival. It still exists today under the name of Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement (BIM) and takes place at the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva. There I discovered so many interesting propositions by artists such as Nam June Paik, Bill Viola, Bruce Nauman, Marcel Odenbach and Godard as well as theoreticians like Raymond Bellour, Barbara Osborn—who was at the Kitchen in NYC—and Catherine David that I decided to study video. I got a grant and moved to Paris to attend University of Paris 8 in Saint-Denis which was quite experimental at the time.
In parallel, I began an internship at the Centre Pompidou during the show “Passages de l’image” in 1989. It was curated by Christine Van Assche, Raymond Bellour and Catherine David and immediately became a key turning point in both the exhibition of moving images in a gallery setting and the reconfiguration of the relationship between art, video, digital media, photography and cinema that had taken place in the last 30 years. I worked with artist theoreticians like Dan Graham, James Coleman, Thierry Kuntzel and Jeff Wall. I took a permanent position at the National Museum and was a production assistant because the video collection department had studio facilities where we could produce works with artists like Julia Scher and Chantal Akerman. The video medium became incredibly popular and we began organizing many touring programs at different festivals and institutions. But the artists were also producing installations so we also had to organize exhibitions for those installations that defied traditional museological practice. We had to invent new investigations into curatorial practices and I guess that is how I started curating. It was quite organic.
C: What did you learn from these very productions by non-video artists? Was there a general similarity of how these artists approached the foreign medium?
NT: At the time, the context of video art was quite specific. The video artists had special galleries, festivals, art critics and even theory. It was linked to a certain experimental narrative with lots of technological effects particularly attached to the ’90s. But the video art movement was quite heteroclite and you could find very interesting ramifications linked to political activism in collectives like Gran Fury (during the AIDS crisis) or Paper Tiger. Other sections were more oriented towards performance with Marina Abramović, Valie Export and Charlemagne Palestine or focused on Experimental Cinema with Jonas Mekas and the Vasulkas.
The video art scene, in a way, was detached from the contemporary scene we wanted to be involved in with our generation with artists like Pierre Huyghe, Philippe Parreno and Thomas Hirschhorn. So in 1994, I decided to found bdv (bureau des vidéos), a contemporary art video distribution and production company with art critic Stéphanie Moisdon. We were dealing with rights for public screenings or specific programs and also proposed a series of editions in VHS at the time with a very low budget. We wanted to democratize the medium and make all those works available as unlimited copies to a large public audience. The company still exists and, since 2006, it has been distributed by JRP-Ringier. All of the archives are now at the Luma Foundation in Arles.
We worked with numerous international artists, among them: John Armleder, John Baldessari, Bless, Peter Fischli & David Weiss, Sylvie Fleury, Jean-Michel Wicker, Gilbert & George, Carsten Höller, Elke Krystufek, David Lamelas, Olivier Mosset, Pipilotti Rist, Jozef Robakowski, Ugo Rondinone, and Michael Smith.
C: In your opinion, how have the ideologies of video art changed over the past decades with technology saturating society? Is it possible that these days an audience has less patience for dwelling on the same screen?’ Have you even noticed a shift?
NT: I’ve noticed a very big shift after the last Venice Biennale by Harald Szeemann in 2001. The entire event was a suite of white boxes with a video projection, not so digestible.
After that it was more difficult to find video projections inside an exhibition, except maybe in the series of Manifesta exhibitions. It’s not only that people had had enough but it wasn’t fashionable anymore and painting made a big come back. The market didn’t know how to handle these products that were not selling so well and, because of the specificity of the medium, it was quite impossible to keep them as editions because of its infinite reproducibility. You cannot put a video on the wall like a painting even if collectors like the Kramlichs or Julia Stoschek are more recently focused on it.
I remember 15 years ago, I was on a purchase committee at the Pompidou specifically for videos, because curators felt they weren’t able to judge those productions. Today, collecting mentalities have changed and institutions don’t differentiate in terms of mediums any more.
C: In what way did the curators feel unable to judge video productions back then? While I agree that images are now much more present in our everyday reality, they weren’t exactly absent 15 years ago… What do you think has made people more comfortable with ‘handling’ this criteria? Is it merely today’s daily saturation of visuals?
NT: In the past, museums had categories for every medium, and they still exist in a few institutions. A curator for painting, sculpture, the print department, etc. It pertains to an old heritage of categorization and specificity. In the early 2000s, video was still separate, until a new generation—the 90s—arrived and broke those very schemes. The museum eventually changed its policy and created a big department of post-war art without using categorizations anymore.
In the past, museums felt they weren’t able to understand video. I even recall a museum director saying he can’t work with a machine, video player and headphones.
I don’t think we can say any longer that we’re saturated with images—we already live with them, more so than ever. And they’ll be part of our culture and contemporary art from here on. Today we buy art on our phones and discover new artists the same way! In a way, studio visits might go extinct because of the rise of Instagram.
C: Don’t you miss the personalization of things?
NT: You know, there are many ways to have an interesting conversation. You’ll always have resistance and people taking time to adapt to change. Certain subjects will always require a different modus operandi.
C: You’ve been the head curator at Syz Collection for the past ten years. Reflecting on your experiences, what stays with you the most?
NT: Building a collection takes time. I’m lucky to be able to work with collectors who have a long term vision and want to support the new generation. I often say that my job is like assembling a puzzle. The collection started in the ’80s at a time that was oriented towards new figuration in reaction to conceptual and minimal art. Almost 40 years later, certain movements are coming back, but differently. It’s very interesting to play with those objects and mirror the 80s with today. I like to link old pieces with contemporary practices and this collection allows me to do that.
C: Several years ago, you started buying German ceramic kitsch on eBay. A while later—almost spontaneously—you began exhibiting them, eventually leading to their selling. Do you want to make a point about the cosmos you take part in, particularly the art market?
NT: This Fat Lava project was actually a test site for the collection I was starting for the Syz family. I used it as a tool to select works. Why this vase and not this other one? Why this artist or why this artwork for the collection? At first I had no idea about the objects, but I needed to understand how and why they emerged. The world is big and collecting—the way I practice it—is about selecting and giving consistency to a group of works. These kitsch German ceramics played the role of artworks. You have movements, old and new ones, and it’s the same as in the art world. I decided to exhibit them, make a catalogue and sell them exactly as people do in galleries with normal artworks. I learned a lot.
I used those vases to play and understand the mechanism in the art world. I’m a democrat, so I think that every artwork might have its moment. The context interests me, and it’s the context here that’s very influential. An interesting point surrounding these kitsch ceramics was how their existence in the art world was legitimized merely by having put them inside a white cube.
C: And that’s exactly what’s problematic here, an object’s immediate legitimization merely by placing it in the right context. In this case: the white cube. It’s the same the other way around, of course. I mean… is it problematic? Who does it affect? The art world, yes, but perhaps most indirectly the role of the artist?
NT: I think a good artwork stays good, whatever the context. When we talk about these vases, it’s more about design problematics and questioning their context. I recently read an interview of a famous stylist who said that today’s fashion shows aren’t only about clothes, but the presentation with music, the models, the set, the famous people attending, etc. I don’t think it’s the same with exhibitions, but for sure it applies to the role of the curator and artist on how to display works.
C: Why do you think things have shifted this way, a fashion show no longer being just about the clothes, an exhibition no longer being just about the art? Not to say that I necessarily think that’s a problem. In ways it’s nice how all the senses are catered to now. But is it also a general commentary on society’s modern condition of boredom, our greater need to be ‘entertained?’
NT: That’s a good question, I guess with fashion it’s really about an industry. The competition is fierce and you need to have everything on your side in order to be special. Just as well, luxury groups integrate very quickly the margins and underground propositions. Like people from Vetements going to an old couture house like Balenciaga…
In art, big institutions are and must search non-stop for mass audiences and less for research. Contemporary art museums are bigger almost everywhere, and are located in countries that just 20 years ago would have been difficult to imagine. Like the Middle East, Southeast Asia, etc. The galleries world is shrinking to a few big players who work with super established artists, the same goes for auctions houses, they make money with masterpieces. The map of the art world has changed; art became a commodity and tends to be presented as an asset.
C: Your past exhibitions demonstrate that you’re not a fan of conformity. What would you ideally like to provoke with your role as a curator? Have you had ideas for shows that in the end seemed impossible because they were too unconventional? What do you think people are usually frightened by when being confronted with realities that are nonconforming to the general society?
NT: Well, things are changing a lot. The world is now in a reactionary moment, civil rights that we thought were acquired seem to be challenged. But what is interesting is that it generates counter power. For example, all the minorities are reconsidered as alternative possibilities to the white male artist whom we were told was the only important actor in art history. So we’re witnessing many new propositions, which is very stimulating.
I wish we could visit an exhibition that would take into account those new parameters and that would be as powerful as historical shows like “When Attitudes Become Form” or “Magiciens de la terre” dealing with post colonial researches. I like big encyclopedic projects where different mediums like TV, craft, politics can coexist. I’m a fan of the encyclopedic projects held by Pontus Hultén at the Pompidou in the early ’90s. They didn’t partition architecture, art, design, politics, etc. It was very generous and clever!
The Mingei show that I did at Pace in London and NYC was important to me. I was confronting old Japanese craft and contemporary art objects that utilize craft methods, like ceramics or textiles. The juxtaposition of a vitrine-inspired display helped to connect the past and the present.
C: Any idea yet what that exhibition would be?
I would love to see an exhibition like period rooms that displays different iconic exhibitions. It’s a bit what I did at Frieze, when reenacting gallery shows from the 90s—for instance, Wolfgang Tillmans’ first show at Daniel Buchholz. It would be fantastic to do that type of show inside an institution.
C: When you decided to recreate ’90s shows during Frieze 2016, was the purpose nostalgia or celebration? What can we learn from (re)experiencing past moments from the art world?
NT: Frieze is an art fair where it’s more about the gallery than the artist. I wanted to pay tribute to galleries which at the time didn’t really know what it meant to be a gallery. The early ’90s were really open and transversal. Artists, curators, and critics were all mixed and we were experimenting within our network. It was a smaller community, a new generation. Also money wasn’t involved as much as it is today and nobody was paid, we all had jobs on the side.
A gallery like Christian Nagel, in Cologne, was a real catalyst for that time. Every important artist who influenced Cologne art scene showed with him. All of those gallerists were in contact—Air de Paris, Esther Schipper, etc. They were united. Today one can see that some of them have succeeded financially more than others yet, at the time, it was totally different, they had very small spaces and were experimenting! Nothing was defined; the market had crashed, so selling wasn’t a primary option. It was more about inventing, being a new generation that could change the past, that could do it in another way, more globally.
C: Is it entirely the fault of money that the art world has become so exceedingly superficial? Having lived both sides of this, would you want things to return to the way they were in the late ’80s and early ’90s?
NT: I don’t think it’s more superficial. It’s faster, that’s for sure. I’ve no regrets towards the past, every moment is interesting. We’re in a revolutionary moment, the end of press, for example. And actually, Cindy Sherman’s Instagram account is quite fascinating. She found a new way to make art according to the medium. When the Kardashians with millions of followers are able to ‘up and down’ markets more effectively than big conglomerates, it’s new and produces new parameters. I don’t suggest that it is better, but it’s new in the way that certain power can go to people who weren’t supposed to have any; it rebalances the codes of society.
C: Is it merely nostalgia that makes some of us melancholic about the art world’s current state, or are we sufficiently justified in yearning for art to become more meaningful again in terms of its cultural and emotional value, rather than its economical worth? Or are people, like me, just getting old?
NT: There isn’t much that we can do except adapt ourselves and find new inspiring ways. Nothing is permanent. Many great artists will come, look at Laura Owens; I think she wouldn’t have been able to produce her recent, fantastic paintings without the help of new technologies. Just like Wade Guyton!
C: When you speak about new generations and their general flexibility to experiment, what type of new experimentations do you see happening now?
NT: The new generation speaks out of the box, they don’t really deal with the criteria of the past, because they’re born with the internet and new technology.
C: It will be interesting to see how things develop. With this rise of new possibilities, neglected—as well as unconventional— topics will be brought to the table.
NT: In L’academie française, which is the highest degree of recognition for intellectuals and artists, there are only four women listed, and almost no diversity. The art market hasn’t opened much. In the 2017 ranking of best selling artists, there are four women out of 100: Kusama (the first woman to rank—and coming in at #42—is the only one alive). Then Barbara Hepworth, Agnes Martin, Louise Bourgeois. Women are still a minority.
End.
Trembley has a Mingei exhibition coming up at Sokyo Gallery in Kyoto (May 2019) and an abstract painting exhibition at Song Museum in Beijing (July 2019)
Text by Lara Konrad and Jessica Oralkan
Photography by Ilyes Griyeb