Nicolas Bourriaud en el MECA, Aguascalientes, México 05

Nicolas Bourriaud (born 1965) is a

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

and

art critic An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art criticism and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogue ...

, who has curated a great number of

exhibitions An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery An art gallery is a roo ...

and

biennials A biennial plant is a flowering plant that, generally in a temperate climate, takes two years to complete its biological life cycle. Life cycle In its first year, the biennal plant undergoes primary growth, during which its vegetative structures ...

all over the world. With

Jérôme Sans Jérôme Sans (born 1960) is a director of contemporary arts institutions, critic and curator, based in Paris. Jérôme Sans, born on 2 August 1960 in Paris, is a French artistic director, director of contemporary art institutions, art critic, and ...

, Bourriaud cofounded the

Palais de Tokyo The Palais de Tokyo (''Tokyo Palace'') is a building dedicated to modern and contemporary art, located at 13 avenue du Président-Wilson, facing the Trocadéro, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. The eastern wing of the building belongs to ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, where he served as codirector from 1999 to 2006. He was the Paris correspondent for ''

Flash Art ''Flash Art'' is a contemporary art magazine, and an Italian and international publishing house. Originally published bilingually, both in Italian and in English, since 1978 is published in two separate editions, Flash Art Italia (Italian) and Fl ...

'' (1987–1995) and the founder and director of the contemporary

art magazine An art magazine is a publication whose main topic is art. They can be in print form, online, or both and may be aimed at different audiences, including galleries, buyers, amateur or professional artists and the general public. Art magazines can be ...

''Documents sur l'art'' (1992–2000). Bourriaud was the Gulbenkian curator of

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...

from 2007 to 2010 at

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. In 2009 he curated the fourth Tate Triennial, titled

Altermodern Altermodern, a portmanteau word defined by Nicolas Bourriaud, is an attempt at contextualizing art made in today's global context as a reaction against standardisation and commercialism. It is also the title of the Tate Britain's fourth Triennial ...

. He was the Director of the

École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts The Beaux-Arts de Paris is a French ''grande école'' whose primary mission is to provide high-level arts education and training. This is classical and historical School of Fine Arts in France. The art school, which is part of the Paris Science ...

, an art school in Paris, France, from 2011 to 2015. In 2015 Bourriaud was appointed director of the La Panacée art centre (a.k.a. MO.CO.PANACÉE) and the director of the Contemporary Art Center of Montpellier, France (aka MO.CO.).

Writing

Bourriaud is best known among English speakers for his publications ''Relational Aesthetics'' (1998/English version 2002), ''Postproduction'' (2001), and ''The Exform'' (2015/ English version 2016). ''Relational Aesthetics'' in particular has come to be seen as a defining text for a wide variety of art produced by a generation who came to prominence in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

in the early 1990s. Bourriaud coined the term in 1995, in a text for the catalogue of the exhibition ''

Traffic Traffic comprises pedestrians, vehicles, ridden or herded animals, trains, and other conveyances that use public ways (roads) for travel and transportation. Traffic laws govern and regulate traffic, while rules of the road include traffic ...

'' that was shown at the CAPC contemporary art museum in

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectur ...

. In ''Postproduction'' (2001), Bourriaud relates

deejaying A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music festival), mobile ...

to contemporary art. ''Radicant'' (2009) aims to define the emergence of the first global modernity, based on translation and nomadic forms, against the postmodern aesthetics based on identities. In ''The Exform'' (2016), Bourriaud examines the dynamics of ideology, specifically as it was developed in the work of

Louis Althusser Louis Pierre Althusser (, ; ; 16 October 1918 – 22 October 1990) was a French Marxist philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at the École normale supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy. Althusser ...

, to account for distinctions between the productive and unproductive, product and waste, and the included and excluded in their relation to society and art production.

Books

* ''Formes de vie. L’art moderne et l’invention de soi.'' Paris: Editions Denoël, 1999. * ''Relational Aesthetics.'' Paris: Presses du réel, 2002. * ''Postproduction: Culture as Screenplay: How Art Reprograms the World.'' New York: Lukas & Sternberg, 2002. . Translated by Jeanine Herman. * ''Touch: Relational Art from the 1990s to Now.'' San Francisco: San Francisco Art Institute, 2002. * ''Playlist.'' Paris: Palais de Tokyo: Editions cercle d'art, 2004. * ''The Radicant '', Sternberg Press, 2009. . Translated by James Gussen and Lili Porten. * ''Radikant''. Berlin: Merve, 2009. * ''Altermodern''. Tate, 2009. * ''La Exforma''. Buenos Aires: Adriana Hidalgo Editora, 2015. * ''The Exform''. Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2016.

Curated exhibitions

* ''Courts Métrages Immobiles'',

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

, 1990 * ''

Aperto '93 Aperto ’93 is the title of an exhibition of contemporary art conceived by Helena Kontova and Giancarlo Politi, and organized by Helena Kontova for the XLV edition of the Venice Biennale, directed by Achille Bonito Oliva in 1993. It reprised ...

'',

, 1993 * ''Commerce'', Espace St Nicolas, Paris, 1994 * ''

'', Capc Bordeaux, 1996 * ''Joint Ventures'', Basilico Gallery, New York, 1996 * ''Le Capital'', CRAC Sète, 1999 * ''Contacts'', Kunsthalle Fri-Art, Fribourg, Switzerland, 2000 * ''Négociations'', CRAC, Sète, 2000 * ''Touch'',

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

, 2002 * ''GNS (Global Navigation System)'',

, Paris, 2003 * ''Playlist'',

, Paris, 2004 * ''Notre Histoire'',

, Paris, 2006 * Moscow Biennale, 2005 and 2007 (with Backstein, Boubnova, Birnbaum, Obrist, Martinez) * ''Estratos'', Murcia, 2008. * ''The Tate Triennial 2009: Altermodern'',

, London, 2009 * ''Athens Biennial 2011 : Monodrome''. * ''The Angel of history'', Palais des Beaux-arts, Paris, 2013. * ''Cookbook'', Palais des Beaux-arts, Paris, 2013. * Taipei Biennial 2014, ''The Great acceleration''. * Kaunas Biennial 2015, ''Threads : a fantasmagoria about distance''.

References

External links

List of selected curated shows and photoObject lessons: Nicolas Bourriaud on Pierre RestanyOn Altermodernity. Nicolas Bourriaud in an interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bourriaud, Nicolas French art critics 1965 births Living people People from Niort Paris Sciences et Lettres University faculty French male non-fiction writers French art curators