For the past 15 years, Brussels-based French artist Béatrice Balcou has been immersing herself in art collections and studying art-handling protocols as a means of producing meticulously crafted performances and objects that focus on a single work by another artist. Presented to small audiences, her “Untitled Ceremonies” extend and intensify the viewing experience, illuminating behind-the-scenes activities and establishing a heightened connection to the work in question. Like the “Ceremonies,” Balcou’s “Placebo” sculptures, a series of wooden replica objects inspired by the performances, require us to think about just what it is we are looking at. Performances and objects alike pose the double-barreled question: What is the work of art we are experiencing? The related “Porteurs” (“Carriers”) and “Containers” series, glass vessels and viewing instruments, expand these concerns to transform how we might interact with artworks.
Balcou’s works have been described by curator Zoë Gray as being out-of-step with the mandates of consumer-driven culture, impervious to the pressures of capitalism, and meandering—characteristics that, she notes, recall the gentle comedy of Jacques Tati. Indeed, the same small gestures, powers of observation, and sense of timing pertain to Balcou’s projects, along with an unassuming sense of humor. Her ingenious body of work opens up an exhilarating realm replete with possibilities and potential as to how art can be viewed and known.
John Gayer: Your “Untitled Ceremonies” performances (2013–ongoing) create new avenues through which other artworks, contemporary and historical, may be experienced and understood. What drew you to producing such works?
Béatrice Balcou: There was no single reason, but several things came together. I was interested in the attentiveness involved in certain Japanese martial arts and the tea ceremony, which I experienced in 2009. I was also interested in degrowth, so I decided not to create something new and focus instead on what already exists—the works of other artists, and their care. . .
. . . Subscribe to print and/or digital editions of Sculpture to read the full article.
