The Bourse de Commerce has drawn some hundred works from the Pinault Collection to present the exhibition “Corps et âmes,” an exploration of representations of the body in contemporary art. From Auguste Rodin to Duane Hanson, Georg Baselitz to Ana Mendieta, David Hammons to Marlene Dumas, and Ali Cherri to Arthur Jafa, some forty artists have used painting, sculpture, photography, video, and drawing to explore the connections between body and soul.
To accompany the exhibition and pay tribute to Arthur Jafa through a series of concerts and performances, Cyrus Goberville has curated a program of musicians who represent both significant and more intimate references for him – echoing the concept of “emotional proximities”, central to Jafa’s vision. February saw Speakers Corner Quartet celebrating Arthur Russell (1951-1992) with ’Travels Over Feeling’ alongside Coby Sey, Loraine James, Lucinda Chua, Oko Ebombo, Sarah Tandy, Sébastien Forrester, Tawiah, and Tirzah, and there are several upcoming events schedule the next few months, featuring the likes of Diamanda Galás, Theo Parrish, Kingdom Molongi Choir and Low Jack.
“In the generative curves of the Bourse de Commerce, as an echo of the rondo of bodies that populate the vast, painted panorama encircling the building’s glass dome, the exhibition ‘Corps et âmes’ explores the significance of the body in contemporary thought through the works of some forty artists in the Pinault Collection. Freed from all mimetic constraints, thebody—whether photographed, sculpted, drawn, filmed, or painted—does not cease to rein?vent itself, thereby granting art an essential organic quality that allows it, like an umbilical cord, to take the pulse of the human body and soul.
Art seizes the energies and vital flows of our thoughts and inner lives to create a socially committed, humanist experience of otherness. Forms metamorphose, returning to figuration or freeing themselves from it, to grasp, hold on to, and allow the soul and consciousness to reveal themselves. It is no longer a matter of merely painting bodies, instead capturing the forces that run through them, to bring to light what is buried and invisible, and to open up the shadows. Arthur Jafa’s work in the Rotunda, Love is the Message, the Message is Death, transforms the space into a sounding board for the music and social commitment of African American icons such as Martin Luther King Jr, Jimi Hendrix, Barack Obama, and Beyoncé, thus granting them a universal scope.
His films, which oscillate between life and death, violence and transcendence, play out as a visual melody inspired by gospel, jazz, and black music. They form a flow of images and sounds that lend their beat to the entire exhibition, in a choreography in which the depicted bodies bear witness to the links between art and life. A rich musical programming in resonance with the exhibition makes ‘Corps et âmes’ a polyphonic event”.
Emma Lavigne, General Curator, General Director in charge of the Pinault Collection.
With : Georges Adéagbo / Terry Adkins / Gideon Appah / Diane & Allan Arbus / Michael Armitage / Richard Avedon / Georg Baselitz / Cecilia Bengolea / Constantin Brancusi / Miriam Cahn / Claude Cahun / Ali Cherri / Peter Doig / Marlene Dumas / Robert Frank / Latoya Ruby Frazier / Philip Guston / Anna Halprin & Seth Hill / David Hammons / Duane Hanson / Kudzanai?Violet Hwami / Anne Imhof / Arthur Jafa / William Kentridge / Deana Lawson / Sherrie Levine / Kerry James Marshall / Ana Mendieta / Zanele Muholi / Senga Nengudi / Antonio Obá / Irving Penn / Man Ray / Robin Rhode / Auguste Rodin / Niki De Saint Phalle / Mira Schor / Lorna Simpson / Wolfgang Tillmans / Kara Walker / Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
THE PROGRAM
March 27th & 28th (Foyer) – Tribute to Maryanne Amacher
March 27th at 9:30pm: The Zwischentöne Ensemble, Contrechamps Ensemble, and Lucy Railton perform GLIA by Maryanne Amacher
March 28th at 9pm: Stefan Tcherepnin and Marianne Schroeder perform Petra by Maryanne Amacher (34 minutes)
9:45pm: Diamanda Galás performs De-formation: Piano Variations (20 minutes)
An intimate reference for the artist, American experimental composer Maryanne Amacher (1938-2009), who pushed the boundaries of audible frequency in the 1990s and whose portrait appears in Arthur Jafa’s slideshow APEX (2013), is the subject of a musical retrospective. The Bourse de Commerce and the New York-based label Blank Forms present GLIA and Petra, two works by Maryanne Amacher reconstructed by her longtime collaborators from archival notes and sketches. These pieces stand out in an oeuvre deeply marked by ephemerality – most of Maryanne Amacher’s compositions are defined by such numerous temporal and spatial parameters that they cannot be performed again since her passing. In resonance, Diamanda Galás, a friend of Maryanne Amacher and a fellow explorer of sonic frontiers, performs her solo work De-formation: Piano Variations, a musical adaptation of Das Fieberspital (1912), an expressionist poem by Georg Heym that narrates in tragic and hallucinatory verses the pain and disfigurement of patients suffering from yellow fever, foreshadowing the return of mutilated soldiers from World War I. More info here
April 4th – Theo Parrish (Foyer) Foyer / DJ Set / Duration : 4 hours 9pm – 1am
The Bourse de Commerce and the New York-based label Blank Forms present a DJ set by Theo Parrish, the legendary Detroit deep house composer and cult figure of electronic music. Having made his mark in the 1990s, he returns to Paris for the first time in years to deliver one of his signature marathon sets in the Foyer. Known for his ability to sculpt sound, Parrish distorts textures and rhythms, creating his own sonic palette – one that favors raw emotion over pristine production. For the last thirty years, Theo Parrish has established himself as a singular producer, an influential remixer, and a cornerstone of of the hardy and prolific Detroit house music scene. Beyond his solo work, he is the founder of the Sound Signature label and a member of the house music supergroup 3 Chairs, along with Moodymann, Rick Wilhite, and Marcellus Pittman. Respected as much for his seamless sets spanning disco, jazz, soul, funk, and blues as for his cultural leadership, Parrish spent his career at the forefront of a movement to retain electronic dance music’s original identity as a proudly – and defiantly – Black art form. More info here.
April 15th – Morton Feldman, For Philip Guston (Rotunda) 7pm – Duration 4h 30mins
The Bourse de Commerce presents For Philip Guston, a piece for flute, piano, and percussion by American composer and leading figure of contemporary music Morton Feldman. The performance in the Rotunda features two soloists from the Ensemble intercontemporain, Emmanuelle Ophèle (flute) and Aurélien Gignoux (percussion), alongside Ninon Hannecart-Ségal (piano). Composed in 1984, For Philip Guston is one of Morton Feldman‘s major works, a poignant tribute to his painter friend who passed away in 1980. This piece, lasting approximately four hours – written for flute, piano, and percussion – stretches over time, abandoning any dramatic development in favor of fragile contemplation. The work weaves subtle instrumental motifs, marked by infinitesimal rhythmic variations, where sounds seem suspended, as if in weightlessness. The composer Morton Feldman (1926-1987) and the American painter Philip Guston (1913-1980) maintained an intense friendship and artistic relationship, though their bond weakened in the late 1960s, crystallizing around aesthetic divergences. At that time, Philip Guston abandoned abstraction in favor of figurative painting, a choice disapproved of by Morton Feldman: “One day, he went to Italy; then he came back, and something happened; his work started to change, and when he came to me and asked, ‘So, what do you think?’, I remained silent for thirty seconds, and that half-minute cost us our friendship. More info here
April 24th & 25th (Rotunda) Kingdom Molongi Choir + Low Jack
8:30pm: Kingdom Molongi Choir presents Kembo
9pm: Lacrimosa, composed by Low Jack and performed by Kingdom Molongi Choir
In dialogue with Arthur Jafa’s akingdoncomethas (2018) – a montage of sermons and gospel songs recorded in Black congregations across the United States and presented in the museum’s Studio – the Bourse de Commerce and the Ugandan label Nyege Nyege invite the Congolese choir Kingdom Molongi to unveil their album Kembo, set for release in March 2025 on Nyege Nyege Tapes. The evening continues in the Rotunda with Lacrimosa, a new composition by French electronic music composer Low Jack, interpreted by Kingdom Molongi. More info here
