CAROLINE SAVES AND BENOÎT VIDAL
J'éprouve le silence des corps, c'est doux les gestes inanimés
Conversations Montréal | Lyon
Curator: Perrine Lacroix
A proposal by La BF15
THE ARTISTS
Caroline Saves lives and works between Lyon and the Pyrénées Atlantiques. She graduated from École supérieure d’art des Pyrénées - Pau Tarbes and École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Lyon (2016). In 2017, she completed an artistresidencyand presented a solo exhibitionat Real Time & Space (Oakland, USA) as part of an exchange organized byArtistes enRésidence. Since 2016 her sculptures have been presented at Mains d’Œuvres, Palais de Tokyo during the Do Disturb festival, Les Beaux-Arts de Paris, La Capella (Barcelona), ELAC, ZZ Studioduringthe Carbone 18 event and the Festival Supervues (2018, Belgium).
Caroline Saves
Benoît Vidal graduated from École supérieure d'art de Clermont Métropole at Clermont-Ferrand (2015). During his studies, he completed a residency at Triangle, New York and one at Fonderie Sculpture Scottish Workshop, in Scotland. Following his studies, he took up a studio at ADERA (Ateliers du Grand Large à Décines Lyon) until 2017. His work has been exhibited at home alonE, preceded by a month of isolation in a mountain refuge. He also participated in a group exhibition at ESACM, the result of a collaboration with the children of a kindergarten located in Clermont-Ferrand.
THE CURATOR
Since 2004 Perrine Lacroix has been the director and curator of La BF15 in Lyon. She is also an artist and has exhibited in several European countries as well as in Australia and Mozambique. In 2008 she directed with Marianne Homiridis the Guide de l'art contemporain dans les espaces publics. Territoire du Grand Lyon 1978-2008. The ambition of the guide is to share the richness and generosity of artworks highlighting the contemporary heritage and dynamic art commissioning policy of Lyon. This publication addresses the public at large: art fans, curious people, tourists but also professionals and students.
Perrine Lacroix
THE VENUE
La BF15 is a non-profit organization facilitating the production and presentation of contemporary art. Since 1995 the exhibitions presented are based on artists’ project proposals that consider the space and environment of the gallery. La BF15 is a place of research and a studio, where the necessity of ideas, differences, uncertainties and transformations are inherent aspects of the creative process. The invited artists come from various backgrounds and are at different stages of their career: this artistic mix is thus the reflection of a diversified world, the portrait of a large family.
As part of Conversations Montréal | Lyon, Caroline Saves and Benoît Vidal propose a suspended choreography in which their performative and sculptural actions intersect and converse. Questioning gestural language, the creations of the two artists depict their physical experimentation of space and make visible and palpable the memory of their moving bodies. Caroline Saves’s character-forms with limp and slender limbs stretch, some make a spectacle while others seem introverted. Sculptural or printed on fabrics, hands are omnipresent. Time tightens its hold and the fabric and latex arms cling to bodies, spaces and ghosts. Benoît Vidal’s movements create a corpus of performed gestures, which take the form of objects or filmed actions. From the gestures he makes during his residency, he leaves clues, objects that exist without his hands to support them. In the slow encounter between inanimate objects and the body that activate them, we do not know what decides the movements, the lines or the arms.
Conversations was initiated by curators Marthe Carrier and Chloé Grondeau and spearheaded by Galerie B-312 in Montréal. It has since become an avenue of exchange between Lyon and Montréal, with a particular emphasis on showcasing the local art scene in each city. In April 2018, five art/residency centres (Bikini, La BF15, Galerie Tator, Factatory, Moly Sabata and Néon) hosted eight Montréal artists in Lyon: Philippe Allard, Jean-Pierre Aubé, Thomas Bégin, Julie Favreau, Isabelle Guimond, Noémi McComber and Guillaume Adjutor Provost. In January 2019, five artists from Lyon (Lise Duroux, Julie Kieffer, Carolines Saves, Benoît Vidal and Victor Yudaev) presented their work in Montréal at La Vitrine, Atelier Daigneault | Schofield, Diagonale, Arprim, centre d’essai en art imprimé and Galerie B-312.
Conversations. Montréal | Lyon was made possible by the generous support of: Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Conseil des arts de Montréal, ministère des Relations internationales et Francophonie du Québec / Fonds Émérillon de coopération franco-québécoise and Institut français / Ville de Lyon.
THE ARTISTS
Caroline Saves lives and works between Lyon and the Pyrénées Atlantiques. She graduated from École supérieure d’art des Pyrénées - Pau Tarbes and École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Lyon (2016). In 2017, she completed an artistresidencyand presented a solo exhibitionat Real Time & Space (Oakland, USA) as part of an exchange organized byArtistes enRésidence. Since 2016 her sculptures have been presented at Mains d’Œuvres, Palais de Tokyo during the Do Disturb festival, Les Beaux-Arts de Paris, La Capella (Barcelona), ELAC, ZZ Studioduringthe Carbone 18 event and the Festival Supervues (2018, Belgium).
Caroline Saves
Benoît Vidal graduated from École supérieure d'art de Clermont Métropole at Clermont-Ferrand (2015). During his studies, he completed a residency at Triangle, New York and one at Fonderie Sculpture Scottish Workshop, in Scotland. Following his studies, he took up a studio at ADERA (Ateliers du Grand Large à Décines Lyon) until 2017. His work has been exhibited at home alonE, preceded by a month of isolation in a mountain refuge. He also participated in a group exhibition at ESACM, the result of a collaboration with the children of a kindergarten located in Clermont-Ferrand.
THE CURATOR
Since 2004 Perrine Lacroix has been the director and curator of La BF15 in Lyon. She is also an artist and has exhibited in several European countries as well as in Australia and Mozambique. In 2008 she directed with Marianne Homiridis the Guide de l'art contemporain dans les espaces publics. Territoire du Grand Lyon 1978-2008. The ambition of the guide is to share the richness and generosity of artworks highlighting the contemporary heritage and dynamic art commissioning policy of Lyon. This publication addresses the public at large: art fans, curious people, tourists but also professionals and students.
Perrine Lacroix
THE VENUE
La BF15 is a non-profit organization facilitating the production and presentation of contemporary art. Since 1995 the exhibitions presented are based on artists’ project proposals that consider the space and environment of the gallery. La BF15 is a place of research and a studio, where the necessity of ideas, differences, uncertainties and transformations are inherent aspects of the creative process. The invited artists come from various backgrounds and are at different stages of their career: this artistic mix is thus the reflection of a diversified world, the portrait of a large family.