La marque et l’atelier d’artiste mis en exposition

Abstract

Highly symbolic as it is, the place of artistic practice is generally seen as the artist’s lair. It is a workshop, which has traditionally been defined as a place for manual work and, in this instance, refers to the place where the artist produces his or her work. By extension, it reflects the act of creation. Named studio, whether it be shared or for the sole use of an individual artist (whether he or she works alone or with assistants), nevertheless brings together the intimate and the public. Although it is a space in which the artist experiments, lives, creates, and stores his or her work, so that it sometimes has the appearance of a private hide-out, it is still a place for sharing, exhibiting and discussion. Playing on this dichotomy, artists have since the middle of the 20th century sought to distance themselves from the studio, or, on the contrary, to open it up. Daniel Buren questioned the status of the studio after Brancusi changed studios in 1971, arguing that "any questioning of the system of art will inevitably pass through a re-questioning of the studio as a unique place where work is done, just like the museum as a unique place where work is seen". Other artists, however, like Andy Warhol with his Factory and Robert Filiou with his shop studio, raise questions about the studio by bringing it to the front of the stage. The artist’s place of production seems, moreover, to be a component of the artist’s work, rather than simply the place where it is created or a framework for its execution. From this point of view, the environment in which the artist works seems to influence his or her work and to limit its materiality or physical constitution. In this way, this multifaceted space, which is at once closed and open, has infiltrated its way into artistic language and has aroused the interest of the public as it looks to delve more deeply into the process of artistic creation. Might we spot here the process by which an artist creates a “brand” through the personal touch he gives to his workplace? According to the logic of the universe in which the brand is seen as a sign, exhibiting the artist’s workplace covers two possible eventualities. It is either the workshop of a living, contemporary artist or the posthumous workplace of an artist who is no longer alive. Based on the interviews we have carried out with artists in their studios and curators, the present article observes how, in this configuration, the brand/sign serves as a protection for the artist’s work and, at the same time, as an element which distorts it.