Emmanuel Simon

Through his practice, Emmanuel Simon challenges the constituent notions of the visual arts vocabulary – particularly the notions of “work of art” and “author”. By immersing himself in the contexts in which he is invited to work, he applies himself to thwarting the milieu’s customary practices: he turns solo exhibitions into collective invitations (to both professional and amateur artists), favours a practice based on process, and lets his personal work dissolve into a more collective dynamic.
From painting – a medium he has worked with since he was a student – spring other forms that relate to it in more or less manifest ways: wall painting (stemming from the artist’s disuse of the canvas and mount), publishing (more likely to recapture the dynamics of collective work), sculpture or installation (making for closer ties with the work’s physical context).
The multiple forms of collaboration that take place within the short-lived collectives that grow out of each project are reflected in the diversified documentation of these processes: email correspondence, notes, sketches, meetings, amid which the exhibition is but one of the steps in the collaborative work, rather than its definitive and immutable outcome.
Once again, the unpredictable and precarious nature of the creations that come out of these experiments questions the work of art’s status and offers a broader, plural and demystified interpretation of it.

Translated by Lucy Pons
Biographical notes translated with the support of the Centre national des arts plastiques