La Criée centre d'art contemporain
Place Honoré Commeurec – F-35 000 Rennes – www.criee.org
In October 2005 Roddy and I spent a week in residency at La Criee, in Rennes. In sequence with an invitation by Jocelyn Cottencin and Larys Frogier to take part in the project Just a Walk, we proposed Office Art Cup.
With me living in Utrecht for most of the time, and Roddy based in Glasgow, it was always difficult to meet up and discuss the directions of the project, as well as to paste together our individual reflections. Unable to “buy time” to meet and develop Art Cup further, our discussions relied on the odd phone call and on e-mail. La Criee’s invitation came at the right moment and allowed us to put other projects aside while concentrating fully on Art Cup. But this wasn’t all; due to the presence of another 5 artists in residency, we not only had the chance to think about the future of Art Cup, but to open its concept and processes to the scrutiny of other artists, curators and critics.
In short, Art Cup wasn’t only focusing on the outcome (Expo and Match), but on its methodology.
The connections between Art Cup and Just a Walk developed at a more process-oriented level, something I’d like to call Office Art Cup.
In Office Art Cup, we set up a couple of computers on a table, dished out a number of catalogues, texts, books etc and played the Art Cup videos on a TV. As we were chatting and dealing with the logistics of the project, we were open to talk to other artists and visitors about what Art Cup. The physical displacement from our working environments together with the presence of Art Cup’s archive functioned both as process and outcome symbolizing an interest in methodological exchanges which will open up our ideas and idiosyncrasies to a wider discussion.
Some examples of exchanges that took place:
-Dinner and informal Art Cup discussion with Jean-Marc Huitorel
-Several chats, readings, discussions, and a game of football with the artists Jocelyn Cottencin, Carla Cruz, Marcel Dinahet, Sébastien Vonier, Loic Touzé etc as well as director Larys Frogier and curator Charlotte Blin.
-Art Cup meets artschool students
-Meeting with Laurence Gateau (Frac Pays de la Loire), to discuss the possible hosting of Art Cup France.