GRENOBLE.- Magasin CNAC is now presenting Julien Creuzet's solo exhibition Oh téléphone, oracle noir (...) opening today. As a prelude to the 60th International Art Exhibition-La Biennale di Venezia (Arpil 20—November 24, 2024) where Julien Creuzet will represent France at the French Pavilion, co-curators Céline Kopp and Cindy Sissokho are pleased to present a solo exhibition by the artist at Magasin CNAC (national centre for contemporary art) in Grenoble, France.

Magasin CNAC will be exploring Julien Creuzet’s artistic journey through a unique new lens by emphasising the enduring presence of the video medium in his oeuvre while also revealing the multiple dialogues and resonances that constitute his creative universe. A consequential selection of Creuzet’s video work will be brought together for the first time, and it will be exhibited alongside art by Phoebe Collings-James, Christina Kimeze, Manuel Mathieu, Bruno Peinado, and Chloé Quenum.

Borrowing its title from a video work by Julien Creuzet dating from 2015, the exhibition Oh téléphone, oracle noir (...) [Oh telephone, black oracle (…)] occupies more than 2000 square metres of exhibition space at Magasin in Grenoble. A veritable survey of the artist’s career, the exhibition will present a series of video works in Magasin’s Grande Galerie. This medium underpins the artist’s oeuvre and represents the heart of his creative universe: sound, voice, music, movement, and bodies. Energetic rhythms, haunting words, fleeting movements, and redolent poems are the primary components of the environments crafted by the artist. The choice to remove the form — the sculpture — thus enhances the perception of space and transcends materiality to spotlight the aural, poetic, and sensory dimension that is crucial to Creuzet’s work. While his sculptures do reappear suspended within a horizontal landscape under Gustave Eiffel’s glass roof in Magasin’s iconic La Rue Intérieure space, the artist’s work in other mediums is found throughout the rooms of the Grande Galerie, always in the presence of works by other artists. As if taking a breath, leaning in, stepping back, or illuminating, the scenography manifests the power of dialogue and multiple viewpoints that are at the heart of the creative process.

Oh téléphone, oracle noir (...) was born out of a desire to broaden the conversation around Julien Creuzet’s work and accentuate the important role that relationships and dialogue play in his art. The idea for the exhibition emerged from conversations between Céline Kopp, director of Magasin CNAC, and Cindy Sissokho, curator of the Wellcome Collection in London, as part of their collaboration with Julien Creuzet as co-curators of his project for the French Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale.

From the outset, Julien Creuzet has incorporated the metaphor of the archipelago into his visual art, his creative process, and even the physical arrangement of his work. He draws upon Édouard Glissant’s theory of archipelagic thinking, and imbues his works with this spirit, conjuring suggestions of transoceanic exchanges, of an incessant back-and-forth between the past and present, and of connections with multiple geographies and temporalities. In a similar manner, when the artist expresses himself, when he speaks through his work or to describe it, it involves a constant dialogue with others. The artist is never alone, but instead constantly within what Glissant terms “the philosophy of relation”. This notion of multiplicity that nourishes and shapes his work is also at the core of this solo exhibition: Julien Creuzet joined by artists whose creative practices activate a shared imagination.

Julien Creuzet: Oh téléphone, oracle noir (...)
With work by Phoebe Collings James, Christina Kimeze, Manuel Mathieu, Bruno Peinado & Chloé Quenum
November 17th, 2023 - April 26th, 2023
Curators: Céline Kopp et Cindy Sissokho