Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck: Human Autonome: Déroutes

Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck in collaboration with Media Farzin, Mobile for the Hotel Ávila, 1939-1942 and The Larger Picture, 1939-1942. From the series 'Modern Entanglements, U.S. Interventions', 2006-2009, 2 C-prints, mock construction plan of Calder's mobile (print on paper), wall label with narrative text

Exploratory and forward-looking, the programme of temporary exhibitions continues to focus on the processes by which contemporary identities and bodies are constructed, in an attempt to reflect on reality and, ultimately, to propose new scenarios and new ways of inhabiting the world. It is in this context that MAC VAL is hosting the fourth episode of the ‘Humain Autonome’ touring project, curated by Marianne Derrien, Sarah Ihler-Meyer and Salim Santa Lucia.
Car, crate, sleeper, tank, jalopy, banger, wheels – the automobile is a paradoxical object. While some adore it, others condemn it. It is, at the very least, an ambiguous symbol, the cause and symptom of many of the crises we are going through (economic, societal, climatic, philosophical). Facilitating the movement of bodies and goods, exploration but also conquest, an instrument both of freedom and control, its use has shaped landscapes, bodies and minds. As the focus of many economic issues, the car is a non-place, half-private and half-public, a fantasy machine and an object of fetishism, sometimes personified. Its production lines, its operating systems, its links with fossil fuels, its myths and its unconscious are all analysed, deconstructed, reassessed and turned upside down by the artists in the exhibition. However, the point is not outright rejection. On the contrary, it’s about raising awareness and pointing out some of the aporias of our contemporary world.
The exhibition brings together some fifty artists from different generations, and is accompanied by a publication tracing the project in its entirety.

Since 2020, the ‘Humain Autonome’ cycle of exhibitions has given rise to several events combining exhibitions, screenings, workshops and performances at the Frac Normandie in Caen (‘À 2000 tours minutes’ and ‘Joyridin’’) at La Condition Publique in Roubaix (‘Fossiles mécaniques’) as part of the Art et Industrie Triennale in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou and the CNAP-Centre National des Arts Plastiques, and at the Ateliers Le Wonder (‘Prélude’) in Clichy (92) for La Nuit Blanche.
Today, then, ‘Déroutes’ at MAC VAL is the fourth chapter of the ‘Humain Autonome’ project.

General Curator Nicolas Surlapierre
Curated by Marianne Derrien, Sarah Ihler-Meyer and Salim Santa Lucia
Associate curator Frank Lamy

With works by A.K. Burns, Alain Bublex, Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck & Media Farzin, Alexandra Bircken, Andrea Zittel, Anita Molinero, Antoine Nessi, Atelier Van Lieshout, Bill Owens, Blair Thurman, BP, Cady Noland, Delphine Reist, Diego Bianchi, Ed Ruscha, François Dufeil, Frieda Toranzo Jaeger, Hans Haacke, Hugo Vessiller-Fonfreide, Julie Hascoët, Kristina Solomoukha, Laurent Faulon, Lothar Baumgarten, Lucie Stahl, Malala Andrialavidrazana, Marcel Devillers, Mark Leckey, Mark Lombardi, Martha Rosler, Mathis Altmann, Matthew Angelo Harrisson, Michael Sailstorfer, Mohamed Bourouissa, Monira Al Qadiri, O. Winston Link, Peter Buggenhout, Piero Gilardi, Randa Maroufi, Sara Sadik, Serge Lhermitte, Sophie Ristelhueber, Stéphanie Cherpin, Suzanne Husky, Tania Mouraud, Taryn Simon, Thomas Bayrle, Thomas Teurlai, Tobias Zielony, Willy Ronis.

MAC VAL - Musée d’art contemporain du Val-de-Marne