Nilbar Güreş, Július Koller, Roman Ondak, Mladen Stilinović: The Cynics Republic

Nilbar Güres, The Moment, 2024, performance for a 1842 Square Meter Drawing, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, Photo: Nilbar Güres

The exhibition ‘The Cynics Republic’ offers a counter-narrative of the history of performance. It looks at the emergence of ‘performative practice’ from Antiquity onwards and seeks to recover the relevance of the values of ancient cynicism – truth, self-sufficiency, endurance, sobriety and free sexuality – in the context of today’s social and ecological challenges. ‘The Cynics Republic’ offers visitors the chance to experience an exhibition constructed as a score and that will be renewed on a daily basis over the course of three weeks thanks to the use of dematerialized resources (scores, protocols, films and sound pieces) from the national collections of the Centre national des arts plastiques (Cnap) and the Kontakt collection in Vienna. ‘The Cynics Republic’ proposes to approach the resources of these collections from the perspective of a repertoire of immemorial gestures. Works will be activated on a daily basis by artists and performers, with the selection updated according to a weekly theme: dishonour (a critical alternative to competitiveness), shamelessness (an anticipation of a state of nature) and finally destitution (an ethic of animality).

Exhibition score by Pierre Bal-Blanc, featuring pieces from the collections of the Centre national des arts plastiques and Kontakt collection.

With works by: Boris Achour, Milan Adamčiak, Pierre Bal-Blanc, Beatrice Balcou, Eva Barto, Sammy Baloji, Marie Cool Fabio Balducci, Bazile-Bustamante, Cezary Bodzianowski, Geta Brătescu, Stuart Brisley, Victor Burgin, Nina Canal, Attila Csernik, Josef Dabernig, Anna Daučíková, Brice Dellsperger, Goran Djordjević, Stano Filko (Daniel Grúň), Robert Filliou, Constantin Flondor, Petar Fradelić, Ivan Ladislav Galeta, Marcus Geiger, Delia Gonzalez – Wolfgang Gonzalez, Tomislav Gotovac, Ion Grigorescu, Friedl vom Gröller, Igor Grubić, Gržinić/Šmid, Nilbar Güreş, Trajal Harell, Tibor Hajas, Markus Heltschl, IKHÉA©SERVICES, Dean Inkster, Sanja Iveković, Anna Jermolaewa, Florence Jung, Lenio Kaklea, Július Koller, Katalin Ladik, Nadia Lichtig, Rick Lowe / Maria Papadimitriou, Paul Maheke, Svetlana Maraš, Teresa Margolles, Marianne Marić, Vlado Martek, Jean-Charles Massera, Dominique Mathieu, Mara Mattuschka, Dalibor Martinis, Dóra Maurer, Miodrag Miloševič, Efthimos Moschopoulos, OHO (Luka Savić – David Nez), Rosalind Nashashibi, Paul Neagu, Manuel Pelmuş, Friederike Pezold, Norbert Pfaffenbichler, Rainer Oldendorf, Roman Ondak, Adrian Paci, Mihovil Pansini, Pope.L, Karol Radziszewski, Jimmy Robert, Matthieu Saladin, Georgia Sagri, Shikeith, Cally Spooner, Mladen Stilinović, Sergei Tcherepnin with Pamelia Stickney, Elisabeth Flunger, Philipp Quehenberger, Artjom Astrov and Michaela Kisling, Hans (Ashley) Scheirl, Hans Scheugl, Albert Serra, Mark Ther, La Tierce – Sonia Garcia, Séverine Lefèvre, Charles Pietri, Raša Todosijević, Slaven Tolj, Loreto Martínez Troncoso, Štěpán Tuček, les gens d’Uterpan, Jiří Valoch, Vătămanu/Tudor, VIER5, Marie Voignier, Jeff Wall Production, Clemens von Wedemeyer, Lois Weinberger, Franz West, Mariana Xenofontos, Želimir Žilnik, Artur Żmijewski.

Palais de Tokyo