De Ateliers 2021

Francois Piron

Function: Art critic, curator, professor and publisher Country: France Visiting period: 12 - 16 October Visiting year: 2021 Part of De Ateliers 2021

Previously, he has been a founder of several artistic platforms and structures, including multidisciplinary art space Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers (2000-2006) and the independent curator’s run space castillo/corrales in Paris (2007-2015), while running the post-graduate residency program at the Academy of Fine Arts in Lyon where he has been teaching the theory and history of art between 2002 and 2020. He is a founding member of the publishing house Paraguay in Paris, where he still operates as an administrator and an editor.

As a writer, his recent publications have focused on the work of Katinka Bock (ROMA Publications), Ian Kiaer (Archive Books), Guy Mees (Sternberg Press), Pieter Vermeersch (Ludion Press) and Alexandre Estrela (Paraguay). He has recently contributed to the catalogue of the Pinault Collection at Bourse de Commerce in Paris, with a piece on Ryan Gander (Dilecta, 2021).

He has curated a large amount of exhibitions:  Bruit de fond, Centre national de la photographie, Paris, 2000 ; Subréel, Museum of Contemporary Art, Marseilles, 2002 ; Intouchable, l’idéal transparence, Villa Arson, Nice, and Patio Herreriano, Valladolid, 2006 ; Société Anonyme, Le Plateau and Kadist Art Foundation, Paris, 2007-2008; Jiri Kovanda Vs the Rest of the World, GB Agency, 2007 (then at De Appel, Amsterdam ; Centre d’art Santa Monica, Barcelona ; Passerelle Art Centre, Brest ; City Gallery, Prague ; Czech Embassy with DAAD, Berlin) ; Where The Lions Are, Para/Site Art Centre, Hong Kong, 2008; After the last Days of Mankind, Nam June Paik Center, Seoul, 2008 ; Habiter poétiquement le monde, LAM Museum, Villeneuve d’Ascq, 2010 ; The Social Life Of the Book, De Vleeshal, Middelburg, 2010 ; The Way It Wasn’t, Midway, Minneapolis, and Culturgest, Porto, 2010-2011 ; Freaks and Geeks, Galerie Air de Paris, Paris, 2011 ; Locus Solus, Impressions of Raymond Roussel, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid ; Serralves Foundation, Porto, 2011-2012 ; New Impressions of Raymond Roussel, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2013 ; Raymond Roussel, The President of the Republic of Dreams, Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin, 2013 and New York, 2015 ; In These Great Times, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, 2014 ; Mangelos, Black Mirrors, Galerie Frank Elbaz, Paris, 2013 and Peter Freeman Inc., New York, 2016. Incorporated!, 5th Rennes Biennale, France, 2016 ; L’Esprit français, Contre-cultures 1969-1989, La maison rouge, Paris, 2017 ; Odradek, Malmö Konsthall, 2018 ; Contre-vents, Le Grand Café, Saint-Nazaire, 2019 ; Three Moral Tales, Malmö Konsthall, 2019 ; Le Plan Libre, Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris, 2020 ; Anticorps (Antibodies), Palais de Tokyo, 2020, and Absalon Absalon, IVAM Museum of Modern Art, Valencia, and CAPC, Museum of Contemporary Art, Bordeaux, 2021.

Forthcoming projects are Sarah Maldoror : cinéma tricontinental, Palais de Tokyo, November 2021 ; What AIDS has done to me, Palais de Tokyo, 2023.