To inaugurate Futures, Supercream's series of interviews and conversations aimed to investigate what the future of art spaces might be setting for the London scene, we are proud to introduce our first guest, Vincent Honoré. After having played a central role in the making of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, and having worked as a curator for Tate Modern, he is now the director of the David Roberts Arts Foundation, in Fitzroia.
Enjoy.

All The Best - Nina Beier and Marie Lund, Installation view Photo: Francis Ware, 2008 ©

CB: THE DAVID ROBERTS ART FOUNDATION - As it is a new institution, founded only in 2007, it has come a long way, and is gradually shaping its identity inside of the London art system. From the front-page of the web-site, it is clear that the Foundation is presenting itself with a set of specific goals, that differentiate it from other organizations revolving around/or initiated by, a collection. It claims the will of promoting dialogue around contemporary art, and expresses an involvement with commissioning both artists and curators. The attention to curatorial experimentation is evidenced by the new Curators' Series, launching in April with Cylena Simonds. Can you give us a brief introduction about how the David Roberts Foundation wishes to situate itself in relation to London's creative and academic industry?

VH: The David Roberts Art Foundation had been initiated by collector and patron David Roberts in mid-2007. As a charitable foundation and an exhibition space, it had been fully operating since the beginning of 2008, with a programme of exhibitions and commissions: group shows such as Something Less, Something More (involving Martin Creed, Elmgreen and Dragset, Manuela Ribadeneira, Nate Lowman or Pierre Bismuth, etc.) or solo projects by Jason Dodge, Tereza Buskova, Nina Beier & Marie Lund and, recently, Alastair Mackie. We had also been able to propose performances by Dora Garcia, Jiri Kovanda or Benoit Maire. The Foundation is also taking care of an important collection focused on contemporary art.
When I was asked to join the foundation as its artistic director or curator, the discussion was not based on how to create a foundation, but on why initiating another space in London, in such a dense ecology of public, private, commercial and alternative spaces. How could a new space, privately founded but philanthropic, hence with a certain mission of public service, could find its definitions, identity and moreover could help in establishing a structure for artists, curators and the audience to co-produce a valid discourse. We quickly realised our actions should try not to be necessarily based on material productions, as we were not too inclined to compete with the spectacular commissions as seen in London (ArtAngel, Turbine Hall, etc), but on intellectual commitments, particular positions, certain tones not widely supported or shown in London. We naturally decided, as a first action, to open the foundation to diverse curatorial practices, and define this a priority. This is what we call the Curators’ Series. The Curators' Series aims to support international curators with unique and experimental vision by commissioning projects for the Foundation. We feel indeed that our mission of supporting contemporary art could not be complete without supporting those who create new and challenging contexts to experience art works. We believe our support to contemporary art to be more effective by focusing on an on-going commitment to diverse and uncommon intellectual positions, as this Curators' Series will reflect. We believe creativity is more likely to happen through collaborations and dialogues between artists, curators and institutions. We then wish the Curators' Series to establish a firm ground to achieve these missions. After Cylena Simonds, the next invited curators are Raimundas Malasauskas (October 2009) and Mihnea Mircan (April 2010). Curators are free to use or not works from our collection. We provide them with a production budget, a curator's fee and a production structure, we follow the development of the project, we help in finding additional support, we encourage them to experiment and test new ideas.

We are at the moment thinking about the academic structures. We are developping a partnership with Goldsmiths' curatorial course to offer the opportunity to young curators to submit projects for the Foundation. A board of curators will select one project each year, which will be part of our Curators' Series, produced by the Foundation and shown in our space. I would like to invite and collaborate with young critics or researchers, or to commission some texts or conferences. It may happen later and in an organic way.

Parallel to our Curators' Series we will still invite artists: Oscar Tuazon will do the summer show. I think it is in this balance between artists and curators that we may achieve to propose a personal landscape. From March 2009, we are launching another action: we are proposing 5 artists studios that will be monitored by the Foundation. We hope, ideally and if the artists are up to it, to activate the studios as a full production entity, and not only as a juxtaposition of separate units, with exchanges of ideas and collaborations. I am thinking about how we can involve the Foundation as a motor for this, without instrumentalizing the artists or their works, which would be a disaster. So the Foundation (exhibition space, studios, collection) aims at acting and being used as a platform, a production unit, a ping-pong table. My role is to set up the game and some rules, not necessarily to play: I invite others whose discourses or actions I feel potentially important to show in London or to support. Then, it's up to you to participate or not to the game. Of course, we wish you will!

All The Best - Nina Beier and Marie Lund, Installation view Photo: Francis Ware, 2008 ©

CB:It is very interesting to define the contemporary art system as an ecology - thus raising the question of how to facilitate a sustainable situation, and maybe even a new kind of structure that can adapt to this specific moment in time. First of all, this certifies the relevance and responsibility of a new set of curators like yourself, which - in your own words - are 'setting up the game'.
Necessarily, it will be a different game from that proposed by large-scale public institutions but it might be charged of a self-invested mission which is both a  scheme for survival in an overpopulated art world as much as it is a declaration of intent.
Can you talk a bit about how your position as a curator has changed since you left public institutions like Tate Modern and the Palais de Tokyo?

VH: I am not sure how I can make my personal trajectory interesting. I was lucky enough to be part of the team who worked on the configuration and then launched the Palais de Tokyo. Therefore learning a little on how to build such an institution, that at the time in Paris was much needed. After a few years, having worked with Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Rebecca Horn or Carole Bove to name a few, I joined the Tate Modern's exhibition team where I worked on exhibitions by Jeff Wall, Catherine Sullivan, Carsten Holler or Pierre Huyghe. By that time, I had experienced a semi publicly founded contemporary art centre and a National museum. For personal and professional reasons, I decided to leave the Tate and to undertake an independent career: first, because I was never an independent curator and wanted to experience it. I was also a bit bored of the administrative and political system inherent to big institutions, and of the hierarchical process of decision-making which, with the time, can be a little frustrating, especially when you’re a "junior" curator. I was lucky enough that my work had been noticed by people who wanted to work with me, and then had been appointed to lead the Foundation. The more important change is, because we are privately founded, because we are small scale, we have the extreme luxury of not having to present history and not having to be exhaustive. I mean, our choices are not necessarily rooted to a certain understanding of what will/would/could be historical. Of course, we are positioned in a certain historical reading, in a certain culture, in a certain vision and we want the Foundation to eventually have a certain historical relevance, but this is not the priority: we are more driven by the will of opening the structure, experimenting with our time, being a player of our time, learning and not showing our existing knowledge. Which big structures, because of a certain consciousness of their public mission as museums and because of political and economical pressure, don't necessarily do.

All The Best - Installation view, works by Dora Garcia, Cecilie Gravesen, Chosil Kil, Benoit Maire (2008) Photo: Francis Ware, 2008 ©

CB: You are in an extremely compelling position as you can facilitate particular ideas and approaches to curating and art practice. As for the ecology of a London scene, not much support has previously been given to independent curators - it is quite an innovative position, as much as it is needed. It is the case of representing a practice, that is different from an artist's practice but nevertheless is integral part of contemporary artistic discourse. The creation of the foundation's identity is reciprocal to the consolidation of the practices it represents. While it won't necessarily represent a unified style, what kind of spirit does it want to promote, as far as curating is regarded?

VH:It is right to say we will present diverse positions, or exhibitions I would not have, or could not have made as a curator. It is crucial for the foundation that the Curators' Series is not motivated by any personal criteria, but by a professional – almost neutral in some ways – choice, driven by curiosity and risk. As a matter of fact, I tend to select curators upon projects I have seen and found exciting. Hence, most of the curators invited had never met me before, and it is rewarding that they accept to present an exhibition at the foundation. Now that our activity with curators is becoming to be more known, we also speak a lot with other curators, artists and gallerists who recommend some practices. We want to present as much diverse curatorial positions as possible, but all linked with a certain desire to challenge the meaning of the exhibition, to share and to experiment. From this, all is possible: I am at the moment thinking of inviting a young curator specialised in classical art. Do you know the works by curators such as Régis Michel at the Louvre or Philippe-Alain Michaud at Pompidou? They are specialised in classical art (Michaud is a specialist of 17th century drawings and avant-garde films and videos). They are brilliant, and realised both in their own way some of the best exhibitions I've seen, reconsidering classical material through a contemporary perspective. I would love to invite a young curator who could challenge our vision of classical art. We are then acting like a publisher, but for curators, trying to resist an uniformed format of thinking, aiming to demonstrate the multi-layered potentials of contemporary practices. The most important factor is for the exhibitions to be valid, and not a mannerist or artificial game.

All The Best - Jacob Dahl Jürgensen, Musique Concrète (2008) Courtesy the artist and Wilkinson Gallery, London Photo: Francis Ware, 2008 ©

CB: What are the most urgent matters in shaping the foundation that you as curator are concerned with? What do you think is the most impelling chore of an art space, these days? Is it specific to London?

VH: At the moment, I am concerned about communicating our goals and philosophy, I must confess. Because of our position in the city (in Fitzrovia where many commercial galleries operate), because of our size, because of our name, and perhaps also because part of the art world had been governed by the market, it seems difficult for many people to understand the foundation as a non-profit space which goals are not necessarily linked with its collection, whose programme is independent and driven by a public philanthropic mission. I guess it will come with the time. Now, when you start programming a space, you more than often face a terrifying solitude and an ever questioning of your own choices: is the programme good enough? Are we making the right decisions? Are we researching enough? Is the space generous enough? We want to take our time, we don't want to be judged on the first year of activities, but after three years of production. Then we will see if what we proposed had been valid, if we should either accentuate it or take another direction. It is important for the Foundation to constantly question its validity: there is no reason to spend money and waste our time if what we do does not bring anything to the current contemporary debate. It is crucial not to freeze the foundation and keep it as alive as possible. In London particularly, one could think art has often became simplified as either a pure (optical) spectacle or a simple (formerly lucrative) industry. We may sound boring – I hope not all our projects will be! - but what is important to us is the complexity of contemporary practices, the different layers and unfolding of a meaning, how to reflect and communicate it without simplifying it or instrumentalising it.

All The Best - Cecilie Gravesen, The Fellowship Playboard (2008) Courtesy the artist Photo: Francis Ware, 2008 ©

CB: In the show you curated last Autumn at the foundation - All the best, with artists Nina Beier and Marie Lund, you exposed an extremely sophisticated and almost ephemeral curatorial strategy. Can you talk to us about how you dealt with it?

VH: The show started on a simple basis: what is the validity of presenting a retrospective of young artists, who at the time, didn't have any major solo exhibitions in London. Knowing that most of Nina and Marie's works revolve around a certain resistance to existing formats, I suspected they would counter-react and propose a structure that would resist my proposal. We then entered a dense dialogue about this exhibition, from this basis. They quickly proposed to gradually exchange their works in the show by works by invited artists. I could not be more satisfied, as it totally echoed the Foundation's spirit: evolving situations, dialogues and exchanges, experimentation and a certain resistance to preconceived ideas. I like counter-reactions by artists, when we all enter a game or a dance (I am at the moment developping a project with American artist Oscar Tuazon. We are setting up the rules for his exhibition for the summer).
We discussed the list of artists, although of course they were absolutely free to invite whoever they liked. They contacted the artists with the list of their works selected in the exhibition, and asked them to choose one (or more) and to exchange it with one of their own works that could initiate a dialogue with them. We opened a solo exhibition, that I curated in a very classical or instutionalised way (as if the artists were not there. I created plinths, lightings, positioned the works in a museum-style: the display for Common Objects for instance was a little inspired by a display of Brancusi's works I experienced in the US). Gradually, starting from the day after the opening, Nina and Marie's works vanished to be replaced by works from the other artists (Roman Ondak, Dora Garcia, Chosil Kil, Aurélien Froment, to name a few): a group show where their presence as the initially invited artists and my presence as the curator became phantom-like.

All The Best - Nina Beier and Marie Lund, Installation view Photo: Francis Ware, 2008 ©

CB: Nina Beier and Marie Lund often work on pre-existing structures, and as the curator you were inevitably involved in the game. In your previous answer you say that you 'curated in a very classical or instutionalised way'. You presented a specific kind of curation, a fetishized and narcissistic approach - as a starting point for resistance.
It was a necessary pre-condition for their work to develop. The identity of the curator becomes essential as it develops into a tool inside of the process, by setting the exhibition not as a conclusion but as a starting point. The action went beyond absolving a traditional duty, as it became the fetishized grounding for the subversion and replacement that took place.
I am curious to see if in light of this experiment, and in light of your practice as exhibition curator shifted to the broader task of the project-space curator, you have any considerations about the limits and risks of exhibition-making, when a balance between the artwork and an external curatorial strategy is difficult to find.

VH: I adopted on purpose indeed a quite neutral and classical style, as the basis for an action, as a score for the artists' part. As such, then the exhibition at time was unbalanced (as the work replaced were obviously missing,
replaced by smaller or totally different works) but eventually rebalanced itself, at the end of the exhibition.
We might enter a new phase of collaboration, where the authorship is displaced from the construction of the situation (an art work, an exhibition) to its general perception or displacement and rhizomic co-production. Perhaps we can feel it in works by artists such as Tris Vonna-Michel or Alexandre Singh. Perhaps we have felt it in practices by Rirkrit Tiravanija or Dora Garcia. In terms of the curatorial practice, each curator has a particular understanding of his role, but from the "author" who creates formal assemblages as defined by Eric Troncy, to the "facilitator" who creates situations and exchanges (Hans-Ulrich Obrist for instance) to the almost-artist whose exhibitions – often evolving structures - are strictly defined by rules borrowed from social interactions (Jens Hoffmann) or curators-critics who group, edit, define and communicate states of contemporary practices (Nicolas Bourriaud), just to name a few, they all may have worked in a way that attempts to break the academic role of the curator as a producer, with the goal to come closer to the creation process.

My position is clear: I am not an artist. The curator's role is to help the artist to structure his/her proposal and help the audience to enter it. I love this quote by Flaubert: "The author in his work must be like God in the universe, present everywhere, and nowhere visible" (Gustave Flaubert, Lettre à Louise Colet du 9 décembre 1852). It also means leaving some unclear zones, some blank space where the audience can write its part, where the art can be shown and displaced via a set of flexible conditions allowing for possible miss-understandings yet also for mutual co-productions: a show like a wikipedia structure.
Giorgio Agamben declared in a lecture on International Situationism and Video work: "One cannot consider the artist’s work uniquely in terms of creation; on the contrary, at the heart of every creative act there is an act of de-creation. Deleuze once said of cinema that every act of creation is also an act of resistance. What does it mean to resist? Above all it means de-creating what exists, de-creating the real, being stronger than the fact in front of you. Every act of creation is also an act of thought, and an act of thought is a creative act, because it is defined above all by its capacity to de-create the real." The worse exhibitions I have seen (or done) were those were I could not feel any resistance: I therefore could not enter the game and the fascinating experience of de-creating the syntax of the exhibition in order to re-create my own discourse from it.

All The Best - Nina Beier and Marie Lund, The Archives (World Piece) (2008) - Framed second hand piece posters. Courtesy the artists and Laura Bartlett Gallery, London Photo: Francis Ware, 2008 ©