© PHOTO FRED FOREST
had the necessary finances, but not the space. The originality of my retrospective at Centre des Arts d’Enghien in January 2013 is that I myself am the curator! The budget is sufficient but modest in this time of crisis. In terms available space, it’s well below capacity for translating in detail an artistic activity that has spanned half a century, representing more than a hundred materialized works, and more than 600 numbers, registered with Ina’s national heritage, constituting half-inch tapes, VHS, U-matics and audio cassettes. And since the walls can’t magically expand in a concrete architecture, I think I made the right decision. Meanwhile, I await my next… retrospective, which is already currently being negotiated between two American academics with lots of degrees and the enlightened representative (the only one I know) of a large French institution. If it works out, this will be my fourth retrospective (laughs). But as retrospectives are usually a prerogative of people who are already dead, I still have some time ahead of me to not give up prematurely and collect retrospectives like others collect butterflies. Of course, I would have to slow down on my cur-
rent productions, if I still want to find a balance between available budget and space to fill (more laughs).
How did you select the works? How is the show structured? By periods? By media? By intention? This is where we inevitably get to the more annoying questions. ;-) Or more precisely, that which goes against the grain of the experts. Between choosing a traditionally chronological approach, or one based on intentions by media or themes, I decided to make the—yet again transgressive—choice to not choose! I don’t have anything against structured education, and my former students from École des Beaux Arts and the university will confirm that. However, given the limitations that are inherent to the space available, I am offering visitors a creative path through the exhibition. This means placing a few symbolic milestones in my process here and there throughout the space. For example, M2 artistique in the form of enlarged press inserts, Vidéo Troisième âge with an installation of photos and video documents, or Le blanc envahit la ville in analogue, or even Avis de recherche de Julia Margaret Cameron,
Fred Forest, TheTraders Ball, installation/ simultaneous event in situ and su Second Life. LabGalley, NewYork, 2010.
the social media safari hunt that uses daily classified ads in Var Matin, radio, TV channels FR3 and Antenne 2, where for four months, the whole city searches for an imaginary character, identifying and communicating with him through postal mail and Minitel. Twenty screens will punctuate my exhibition in order to present these various installations.
With hindsight, how do you judge your old works? What problems do they bring over time? My old works are very current. The issues I raise are the same as the ones I develop in more recent pieces—a critical questioning of art and society, as well as the future of human behavior within this new environment. For me, ethics has always had priority over esthetics in my work. So much for background. Otherwise, over time, the basic concepts established by artists of the 1970s have turned out to be the same ones that are simply “reactivated” by using certain technologies: remote presence and action, real-time, social games and role-playing, ubiquity, interactivity, exchange, contributory participation, gestures and behaviors, networking, territory, power, hybridization, coexistence of the imaginary and reality.
> digitalarti #12 - 09