Jagna Ciuchta: The Fold of the Cosmic Belly
From 17th September to 27th November 2021
Opening: Thursday 16th September, 6pm to 10pm
Jagna Ciuchta with Aïcha and Sheila Atala, Miriam Cahn, Patty Chang, Arnaud Cousin, Chloé Dugit-Gros, Allal El Karmoudi, Fadma El Karmoudi, Karima El Karmoudi, Nan Goldin, Nancy Holt, Marta Huba, Suzanne Husky, Graciela Iturbide, Janka Patocka, Samir Ramdani, Martha Salimbeni, Alina Szapocznikow, Dorothea Tanning, Eden Tinto Collins, T. Venkanna
Jagna Ciuchta et Janka Patocka, Le pli du ventre cosmique, introduction, 2021 (détail). Plexiglas noir, panneaux laqués, MDF alvéolé, papiers découpés, photocopies, papier miroir, bandes adhésives. Vue de l’exposition de Jagna Ciuchta, Le pli du ventre cosmique, 2021, Bétonsalon – centre d’art et de recherche, Paris. Photo : Jagna Ciuchta © Adagp, Paris, 2021
“As is often the case, for my titles I chose a register similar to that of B movies, somewhat excessive, inexpensive and accessible to everyone. What I like in B series films, is that no one takes themselves too seriously in them, they are more about unabashed enjoyment than ambition, but they also deal with political subjects. And then the ideas this title evokes are not new (or not all of them) in my exhibitions. They resonate within all the other invited works. The belly is an energy centre and an intersection of desires, sexuality, breath, digestion, all kinds of pleasures, maternity, emotions and billions of bacteria. It is a cave with its own ecosystem and art history, a living container, a cosmos in its own right, a site of transformation. I like the idea that the exhibition is a belly. There are folds, places where identities overlap, improbable contiguities, secrets, passages that open onto other dimensions. The cosmic reinforces our link to the Earth and to everything beyond us. But it also thrusts this title (and the exhibition) into a fantastical fiction, which I hope, makes us smile.”
Interview by Cécile Archambeaud for the first phase of the exhibition at the Centre of art image/imatge, Orthez.
Since 2011, through invitations to other artists to participate in her own practice, Jagna Ciuchta’s work has developed and increased in complexity. Her scalable practice, presented as group exhibitions, is a vector for affective and aesthetic relationships that are indissociable from the economic and institutional aspects of her practice, as well as its relationship to its milieu. Driven by a desire for real, symbolic and aesthetic autonomy vis-à-vis the institutional framework, Jagna Ciuchta defines her own monstration and documentation tools. Her works stage the confusion between real and fantasised registers, internal and external spaces, the self and others in a radical form of hospitality. Using the motif of incorporating works that she immerses in her scenographies or photographs, Jagna Ciuchta dons the invisible role of the curator—she speaks of “naive curating”—playing with the fringes of the institutions where her work is displayed. Her hospitality, marked by a certain eroticism, in the sense of a desire for contact, envelopment, or even absorption, leads to a sort of self-effacement, a continual shift and unstable forms. Jagna Ciuchta’s mechanisms are constantly evolving; she continually reorganises the display transforming her scenography, imbued with its own rhythm, from the opening right until the end of the exhibition. From another perspective revealed by the strong visual presence of the scenography, the invited artists are also contained within her, assimilated, or even digested by her composition. The artist’s omnipotence thus emerges, her arbitrary and emotional choices, her ability to create other value systems, to do things differently to a curator, while remaining fully aware of the risk of reciprocal cannibalisation inherent to the act of welcoming or desiring the other. Jagna Ciuchta’s oeuvre is located in the tension between these two extremes.
This exhibition is coproduced with the Center of art image/imatge, Orthez, where a first chapter was on display from 11 June to 28 August 2021.
It is supported by Antoine de Galbert Collection thanks to their loan of Miriam Cahn, Patty Chang, Graciela Iturbide, Dorothea Tanning and T. Venkanna’s works,
by Frac Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur thanks to their loan of Nan Goldin’s work,
by Loevenbruck and Piotr Stanislawski Gallery thanks to their loan of Alina Szapocznikow’s work,
by Electronic Arts Intermix and 49 Nord 6 Est - Frac Lorraine for Nancy Holt’s work
by oeufs-de-yoni.com shop for Marta Huba’s work.
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