From:
Category: Exhibitions
Date: 16 September 2003
The Fonds Regionaux d'Art Contemporain (FRACs) have been celebrating their 20th anniversary with exhibitions all over France. The exhibitions are interesting from the point of view of judging the ability of publicly funded bodies to build up interesting contemporary art collections, which is what the FRACs are basically all about. From the exhibitions in Nantes, it looks like they are doing a pretty good job. A bit of a mixed bag, but the good stuff neutralises the inevitable tired and dated works (an example of which for me was a few boxes of Slimfast stacked up as a post-modern feminist take on Warhol's Brillo boxed. hmmm). As for the good stuff, my favourite is Peter Fischli and David Weiss' film Des Lauf der Dinge (1986) which shows a chain of causal events - a ladder knocks over a plank, which sets a tyre rolling, which hits a bucket of dry ice, which etc etc. Although you can see where they've joined up the sequences, it is still mesmorising and one of the best video/film artworks I've ever seen. I managed to sit right through it. Twice. And that's a first.
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