Sans consentement

The exhibition pictures are not in the CAN’s archives.

In 2002, millions of people will visit The Swiss National Exhibition, which will take place on the shores of picturesque lakes in four attractive cities – one of which is Neuchâtel. This will be the occasion for a great celebration, during which the values of conviviality and playfulness will be glorified. Like the preceding National Exhibitions, that of 2002 will be presented as a new beginning, as a chance for all the inhabitants of the country to assemble around the idea of a unified project.

However, for reasons of simple mental health, such an event requires its portion of questioning, of doubt: in comparison with the optimism and utopian spirit that will then be in play, to adopt a discourse resolutely different, indeed disturbing, appears indispensable. This is why, convinced that The Swiss National Exhibition has been to some degree imposed on the population, The CAN – Centre d’art Neuchâtel – has decided to present an alternative exhibition on rape entitled Sans consentement («Without Consent»). It will propose to several artists to present their work either, indoors, in the exhibition space, or outdoors, to enter into twelve unfrequented urban spots where rape would be likely to happen. Selected by reason of their relatively unsafe ambiance, these places would invite another experience of the city today than The Swiss National Exhibition, where an atmosphere of visibility and security predominate. It is as a place of danger and frustration that the city will furnish the material for artistic inspiration.

Sans consentement will be on guard not to propose anything simplistic, expected, any more than something stable or definitive (to tackle a subject as complex it must use models borrowed from literature, such as The Marquise of O., by Heinrich von Kleist, which deals with the extreme case of a victim of rape who was not conscious at the time). It will attempt to efface the trails, to multiply the indirect approaches, for example, by putting emphasis on the scenery, the atmosphere, or even the abstract. It will take as its point of departure the most familiar forms of rape, such as the manifestation of male sexual dominance or the maiming of the countryside by war or industry. However, careful to present a multiform reality, the exhibition will also encompass the other dimensions of rape: homosexual, intellectual, medical, technological, without of course Torgetting the artistic question: for it is a permanent institutional form of rape, perhaps it is even the essence of art itself, in its perpetual quest of taboos and conventions to transgress, to abuse its public.

Because it is sometimes called on to record the evidence of rape in the framework of a judicial investigation, while being often an activity that imposes itself on people without their knowledge or will, photography will hold an important place in the exhibition. Let us also remember that an image tells a story, or stories. However, in the case of rape, we can see the singular effect of a mutual reinforcement between story and image: the story arousing spontaneously all sorts of images while the image cries out for a story to inhabit, which threatens to capture the spectator in a trap of fascination and voyeurism.

The second challenge of Sans consentement, beyond the evocation of multiple aspects of rape, consists in envisaging going beyond the image and the story that such a volatile subject tends to demand. Is photography the best medium to deal with rape? Doesn’t it restrict the problematic within too narrow a frame? Can it preserve intact its power to put in question public mores? Indeed, doesn’t it tend to reaffirm people’s biases, only responding to their expectations in continuing to show them the stories they want to see? In other words, doesn’t photography favor a kind of «call to order», to the detriment of artistic strategies that seek to cultivate an atmosphere of uncertainty and destabilization? The highly constructed discourse of photography, can it be deconstructed by means of other medias, to create a larger perception of rape? To respond to these questions while testing the outside limits of the image, Sans consentement intends to conduct a sort of «trial by media», both inside The Centre d’art, as well as outside it-i.e., the twelve places around the city; and without at the same time discounting the capacity of photography to resist all critiques.
This project of The CAN is thus an ambitious undertaking, an audacious risk. As in any collective exhibition, it must steer through twin reefs: bringing together all the different concepts while establishing a coherent link between them. Even more, it must clearly articulate two spaces – the interior and the exterior – at the same time locating itself within the narrow context created by The Swiss National Exhibition, whose organizers have forbidden any such relationship. Last but not least, it must evoke the two main directions taken by art today and their inevitable conflict: the tacit opposition between an «iconophilia» nourished by photography and fashion on one side, and an iconoclasm supported by the adherents of a less immediate and more discrete art, on the other. A catalogue is planned, whose form will respond to the stakes raised by the exhibition, and which will be published by the French magazine Crash (1 5’000 ex). The current discussion revolves around three formulas: 1) a documentary catalogue containing a description of the works in situ; 2) a «statement» catalogue, in other words, a catalogue that is an entity in itself and not merely a record of the exhibition; 3) a «generic» catalogue dealing with the subject of rape in general. It goes without saying that all three formulas would include a presentation of the works in lavishly illustrated color reproductions and based on a wholly original esthetic. The catalogue will comprise approximately one hundred twenty pages.

The exhibition Sans consentement is curated by:
Jean-Christophe Blaser
Marco Costantini
Jean-Pierre Huguet
Annemarie Reichen

As a matter of interest:
05.15-10.24, 2002: The Swiss National Exhibition – Expo.02
25.05.2002: Sortie du magazine Crash – Sans consentement
06.12-06.17, 2002: 33rd Basel Art Fair – Art Basel
06.06-08. 18, 2002: CAN alternative exhibition – Sans consentement

Opening June 15 2002
Exhibition from June 16 to August 18 2002