Ivana Brenner (Argentina) - Nothing is yet in its true form (2015)
6e Biennale internationale du lin de Portneuf – Curatorial statement for catalogue
Work and Worth
The transformation of the world of work is a key contemporary issue, both in an artistic and social context. Underlying our concerns about work are questions about value; work can be seen as the pursuit of value, but how do we decide what is valuable? Creative work is paradoxically both fundamental and marginal in our culture. What kind of work, then, is art? These questions have inspired the curatorial theme of this year’s Biennale, which considers the relationship between work and worth. The projects presented expand our understanding of the values we ascribe to work―creative or otherwise―while dismantling outdated notions of the artist as genius in favour of a model of art as work.
Traditionally, work involved the transformation of materials for useful purposes through human labour and know-how; the household production of linen is an archetypal example of this process. As our concept of labour shifts, old dichotomies between mental and physical labour blur; similarly, the perceived distinction in art between an idea and its execution is dethroned. These exhibitions present a spectrum of practices, ranging from displays of dexterity and seemingly magical workmanship to performative acts of making that highlight the artistic process itself, where the artwork is an accumulation of a single gesture whose trace makes time and toil visible. These projects exploit the various frameworks that organize work, whether through counted time, the earth’s natural cycles or the limits of the body itself. Other artists devise sets of self-established rules and intentionally or unintentional deviate from them, creating provocative metaphors for the beauty and absurdity of repetition.
Collectif M et M (Québec) - Cultiver le territoire (2015)
The very existence of art challenges polarized capitalist notions of useless versus productive work. Through strategies such as the use of non-precious or disused materials, artists highlight artistic and other immaterial labour ― invisible, undervalued, or often not even recognized as work―from domestic and textile labour to social and biological processes. What work does a cloth do, a thread, a flower, a seed? Similarly questioning the attribution of value to materials themselves, the Biennale artists explore the physical properties of flax in all its forms and ask: is a material intrinsically valuable or is it a function of its abundance, rarity, usefulness, or historical or marketing value?
Moving from a micro- to macro-perspective, we note many artists who highlight the social nature of work, how people collaborate― together with materials― to create value. This celebration of savoir-faire and cultural heritage is the raison d’être of the Biennale du lin. Across cultures, lost savoir-faire is being renewed in communities by artists who create dynamic conversations with history and technological change that are not nostalgic but dialectic, honouring the past while adapting to new realities.
Lalie Douglas and Barbara Wisnoski, curators.
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