Meanwhile… Suddenly, And Then (Entre-temps… Brusquement, Et Ensuite) is the headline of the 12th Biennale de Lyon in France. The title hints at the focus of the 2013 edition of the biennial, storytelling. Since the first Lyon Biennale in 1991, the artistic director, Thierry Raspail has invited guest curators to think in terms of a key word. This year, the word is Transmission, and the curator Gunnar B. Kvaran responded with the word Narrative. Following this theme, Kvaran has invited artists from all over the world who work in the narrative field and use art to experiment with the modalities and mechanisms of storytelling. The artists invited include Ed Atkins, Helen Marten, Vaclav Magid, Trisha Baga, Ian Cheng, Petra Cortright, Nate Lowman, Ryan Trecartin, Zhang Ding, Masaya Chiba, Neil Beloufa and Lili Reynaud-Dewar. This video provides you with an exhibition walkthrough and an introduction by curator Gunnar B. Kvaran.

Matthew Barney‘s contribution to the 2013 Biennial is a love story. In an extended oeuvre that ranges from discipline to transcendence, Barney endlessly pushes back the boundaries of the human body and its representation, with cycles like Cremaster and Drawings Restraint utilising the creativity triggered by obstacles and restrictions. His performances in sculptural environments are part of an all-embracing exploration – undertaken at any cost – of the relationship between body and mind.

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Jeff  Koons is a complete artist whose work embraces all possible media, including installation, photography, painting and sculpture. One of the few artists to have integrated all the major avant-garde trends of the 20th century, he has been working since around 2010 on a quasi-filmic narrative whose subtle, delicate paintings recount his intimate relationship with the history of art.

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Yoko Ono speaks to us of the whole world, in all its material and spiritual dimensions. At once a peerless performance artist whose politically committed events unfailingly strike home, a celebrated visual artist long associated with Fluxus (which she helped found in 1962), a composer and a filmmaker, she has been building for years a body of experimental, subversive, interactive work relating to everyday existence; work whose conceptual richness, intellectual rigour and quasi-intangible poetry make her one of today’s greatest artists.

Cut Piece, 1964 – 1965
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Helen Marten makes fun of accepted frames of reference with new codifications of what makes up everyday life. In her installations, sculptures and videos, language and images are associated with perverse, stylised errors in a deliberate deranging of the classical symbols of human activity.

Mad Particles
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Anicka Yi recounts the interconnections between materials and materialism, between the state of nature and its usage value, between consumerism and metabolism, between fragrance and the perfume industry, and between post-humanist theory and its sociopolitical implications for the body and the senses. Her interest in the sensory springs from an urge to reorganise and redefine the prevailing concepts of value and experience in the art of today.

Sister
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12th Biennale de Lyon: Meanwhile… Suddenly, And Then (Entre-temps… Brusquement, Et Ensuite). Lyon (France), September 11, 2013. Video by Christophe Ecoffet.

via vernissage.tv