To put together a Contemporary Art collection is an exercise in anticipation and follow-up undertaken almost simultaneously with the emergence of the works. Thus production and exhibition reinforce each other, underpinning the activity of a collection which, by extension, necessarily involves the programming of art projects. Any collection crystallises the core questions that traverse the art world and continuously redefine its commitments.
While CoIIection(s) 08 was based on the postulate of a new acquisitions policy, Collection reflects a resolutely forward-looking approach centred on a broadening of the IAC's fields of exploration. One aim of the presentation of new acquisitions is an examination of how thinking as a group—the group in question being a purchasing committee of Contemporary Art professionals—can help to diversify approaches in a context of joint development of the Institute's overall project. Especially significant here, the notion of focusing on a specific artist is one of the driving forces behind the formation of the collection.
Whether sculptures, videos or drawings, the works shown in Collection all embody an overt formal dimension and make direct use of the exhibition space. Two kinds of exploratory gambits are in evidence here: the sociocritical and poetic pieces of Jordi Colomer, Latifa Echakhch and Delphine Reist, and the more formal, perceptual work of Delphine Coindet, Philippe Decrauzat and Pierre Malphettes.
Following CoIIection(s) 08 and its investigation of relationships between the conceptual practices at work in the critical/perceptual context, Collection sets about generating comparison and opportunities for dialogue.
