THE
ACTIONS OF FRED FOREST
69
EXHIBITION AND INSTALLATION
THE WATCH TOWERS OF THE PEACE 15 YEARS
AFTER
SARAJEVO, GALERIJA 10 m2
JUNE 2007
We recall today that in May 1993, while Sarajevo was in the grips
of a merciless war, Fred Forest erected his "Watchtowers of
Peace" along the mountains of the formerYugoslavia.
http://www.webnetmuseum.org/html/fr/expo-retr-fredforest/actions/46_fr.htm#text
The exhibition taking place in Sarajevo in June 2007, fifteen years
later, can be seen as a symbolic extension of this action. The young
people and artists who have invited Fred Forest belong to a different
generation and are consciously extending their hands to him to celebrate
an event that has painfully marked their collective memory. Theirs
is a tiny gallery space, indeed, it even bears the name of its surface
area: Gallery 10m2.
Fred
Forest was one of the first to understood that a ground surface
area, even one as self-aware as "the square meter", a
notion that he has thoroughly explored in the past, must no longer
be the one and only substrate for the creation and distribution
of art. What counts first and foremost today is the immaterial space
of worldwide networks, an-other space. This space irreversibly restructures
our social and professional activities, our behaviors, our preferences,
our lifestyles and our imaginations. It's therefore up to the official
contemporary French art world, its institutions and its market to
wind their watches if they want to be with the times.
The
entire world is invited to the ten square meters of Gallery 10m2
in Sarajevo. What's more, the entire world can be present and included
in the space thanks to its being interfaced with the Internet. This
interfacing established by the artist provides the medium that he
shall use, test and experiment with as evidence that our relationship
to the world has changed, that traditional and physical borders
have been displaced, if not abolished.
To
sum it up in Fred Forest's own words: "Throughout the duration
of the exhibition, the gallery's 10 square meters will expand digitally.
My intent is that the concomitant spread in communication will be
enough to rattle our own cognitive enclaves. My hope resides in
the firm belief that by expanding our own mental space, each and
every one of us will one day be able to recognize others, indeed,
to recognize the other as being an-other ourselves. This ardent
belief is, I believe, all the more applicable here in Sarajevo
http://www.webnetmuseum.org/html/pt/expositions/fredforest-retrospective/actions/46_en.htm#text
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