Art is linked to desire. As such, avant-garde queer artists have at times transformed their libidinal energy into a creative force – often in the shadow of reactionary societies. Might we talk about art as a sexual practice? What erotic counter-readings of art history would this offer? And finally, how has the Aids epidemic led to a radical reversal of our relationship to art? This panel will take Paris and the different figures to whom it has given shelter as a prism to trace a carnal psychogeography of the City of Light.
Bruce Benderson, Novelist, Translator, Syracuse, New York
Tarek Lakhrissi, Artist and Poet, Paris
Mathieu Potte-Bonneville, Philosopher, Head of Culture & Creation Department, Centre Pompidou, Paris
Moderator: Juliette Desorgues, Curator and Writer, Paris
Bruce Benderson is most known for his seventh book, a long memoir called The Romanian: Story of an Obsession, which in translation as Autobiographie érotique, won France’s Prix de Flore. He is the author of the novels User (Toxico) and Pacific Agony, the story collection Pretending to Say No (French title: New York Rage), and the essay collection Sex and Isolation (French title: Sexe et Solitude). His controversial manifesto, Against Marriage, was published by Semiotext(e) for the 2014 Whitney Biennale, and he has translated many well-known novels, biographies, and briefer texts from the French. He is the literary executor of novelist and linguist Ursule Molinaro.
Tarek Lakhrissi (lives and works in Paris) is a French artist and poet who studied literature. He works in the domains of installation, performance, film, text and sculpture, and is interested in stories about the transformation of language, magic, oddity and codes. His literature training feeds on the influence of queer and feminist authors, giving his work a critical atmosphere and an interest about the queer minority experience.
Mathieu Potte-Bonneville is a philosopher and currently heads the Culture and Creation Department at the Centre Pompidou, in charge of public programs. As a specialist of Michel Foucault works, he has published Michel Foucault, l’inquiétude de l’histoire (PUF, 2004), D’Après Foucault – Gestes, luttes, programmes (with P. Artières, Points 2011). From the journal Vacarme to the Collège International de Philosophie, which he chaired, to the Night of Ideas (an international event created with the french cultural network abroad), he has worked to develop spaces for experimentation where the spheres of collective action, thought and creation intersect. Last book published: Voir venir – écrire l’hospitalité (with M.Cosnay, Stock, 2019).
Juliette Desorgues is a curator and writer based in Paris and London. She previously worked as Curator at MOSTYN, Wales and has held curatorial positions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, Barbican Art Gallery, London and Generali Foundation, Vienna. She studied at the University of Edinburgh, the University of Vienna and University College London.
The Conversations program for Paris + par Art Basel 2022 is curated by Pierre-Alexandre Mateos and Charles Teyssou.
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