Curator Daria de Beauvais (Art Safari): “My aim was to imagine a project truly specific to the context that couldn’t take place somewhere else, but at the same time being timeless”

Up until May 14, Art Safari presents “The Memory Palace. Focus on the French art scene with the Marcel Duchamp Prize”, curated by Daria de Beauvais, assisted by Lisa Colin. The exhibition highlights a selection of eight artists and two duos of the French scene, from different generations and cultural backgrounds, who participated in the Marcel Duchamp Prize in the past fifteen years. Business Review went behind the scenes with curator Daria de Beauvais, currently Senior Curator at the Palais de Tokyo (Paris), the biggest art center in Europe.

How do you approach curating a program like the one we are seeing on display at Art Safari?

The Exhibition “The Memory Palace – Focus on the French Art Scene with the Prix Marcel Duchamp” originated in a discussion between Art Safari, the Institut Français de Roumanie and ADIAF, in order to create a dialogue amongst France and Romania. The history of artistic relations between those two countries is very rich and it was an honor to be invited to do my part.

There were two starting points: the French art scene, with artists participating in the Marcel Duchamp Prize (one of the most relevant information vectors for contemporary art in France), and the Dacia-Romania Palace (a very inspiring building), which has been hosting Art Safari’s exhibitions for a few years now.

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My aim was to imagine a project that would link these elements, something truly specific to the context that couldn’t take place somewhere else, but at the same time being timeless. I believe a good exhibition will stay in your mind, regardless of its context of creation. Thus I conceived this project, hoping it would create both emotion and reflection for its visitors.

Why a Memory Palace as an exhibition concept?

Memory palaces were invented during Antiquity as a way of remembering facts and ideas, “storing” them, by association, in imaginary places. The eponymous exhibition reveals how some contemporary artists seize the past to reinterpret it, towards a hopeful future.

The inspiration for “The Memory Palace” came from the location (both the city of Bucharest and the Dacia-Romania Palace, which is like an architectural palimpsest) but also from some readings, for instance “The Art of Memory”, written in 1966 by British historian Frances A. Yates. The author traces the art of memory from its treatment by Greek orators, through its Gothic transformations in the Middle Ages, to the occult forms it took in the Renaissance, and finally to its use in the seventeenth century. This book, the first to relate the art of memory to the history of culture as a whole, was really inspirational in my intellectual construction as a curator.

Did you find the Dacia-Romania Palace responsive to the theme? What’s your opinion on having contemporary art in old-historical buildings? 

In reality the Dacia-Romania Palace inspired this exhibition, so it’s more about the exhibition being responsive to the architecture and the context than the other way around. What’s interesting in that case is that parts of the building are incredibly beautiful, such as the façade and the entrance hall, while others are quite tricky, such as the space where “The Memory Palace” is installed, small rooms with drop ceilings that used to be offices. I like this contrast and saw it as a challenge rather than a difficulty.

The exhibition, distributed in two quasi-symmetrical areas, plays on a mirror hanging and impressions of deja-vu. It invites visitors to get lost in the maze of these former offices, of this memory palace, both real (the Dacia-Romania building) and symbolic (the exhibition).

Contemporary art has the capacity to adapt to all contexts, and even to be nourished by its contexts of presentation. Showing contemporary art in heritage buildings has been done for decades, this growth has a strong level of advocacy, and the encounter of these universes gives an additional soul to each one of them.

How did you come up with the selection the artists?

The selection was made amongst artists having been nominated or laureate of the Marcel Duchamp Prize in the past fifteen years. The ten artists or artistic duos I’ve invited have in common to work on the subjects of history, art history or memory. But they come from different generations and cultural backgrounds, they work with different techniques (painting, drawing, sculpture, photo, video, installation, embroidery, neon etc.).

These artists show that the present allows us to bring together the broken bonds of the past, to offer new readings in order to excise its traumas or on the contrary to revisit it for inspiration while different knowledge and know-how are put forward. They question our legacies, open the field of possibilities, and invoke stories beyond human memory, in a perpetual renewal.

How would you describe the Romanian contemporary art scene?

Coming regularly to Bucharest to prepare the project was a great opportunity to investigate the local scene, by visiting museums, galleries, non-profits, artists’ studios… I was already informed about an older generation, with artists such as Marion Baruch, Geta Brătescu, Ana Lupas or Ion Grigorescu, or with very international artists like Adrian Ghenie, Victor Man, Alexandra Pirici or Andra Ursuţa. Now I’m more aware about what’s happening locally, and I’ve met with wonderful artists. The next step would be to visit other cities, other local scenes.

I read quite a few interviews held by you with artists and I noticed that you often mention the fact that you’ve been following their work closely for years. Can you explain how you cope with all these artists? Do you have folders with their names or google alerts with their names? 

I often work with artists on a long-term basis, creating a kind of companionship. For instance, I had already worked with some artists included in “The Memory Palace”, but even for the others I had been paying attention to their practice for some time. This is what helped me select them for the exhibition, as I wanted their practice to make sense in this context.

I’m trying to be as much informed as possible. This requires reading, investigating, discussing, visiting… But paying attention to artists is part of my job as a curator – I like to recall the etymology of this word: from the Latin “curare”, which means “to take care”.

“The Memory Palace – Focus on the French Art Scene with the Prix Marcel Duchamp” takes place in Dacia Palace (Strada Lipscani 18), up until May 14, 2023. Farah Atassi, Michel Blazy, Katinka Bock, Mircea Cantor, Clément Cogitore, Daniel Dewar & Grégory Gicquel, Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, Enrique Ramírez, Thu-Van Tran, and Tatiana Trouvé are among the artists on display.

Daria de Beauvais is currently Senior Curator at the Palais de Tokyo (Paris), the biggest art center in Europe. She has previously held positions both in institutions (Biennale d’Arte and Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice; Museum of Modern Art and Independent Curators International in New York) and in galleries (Zlotowski, Paris; Alessandra Bonomo, Rome; Lili Marleen, New York). She works as well as a freelance curator, teaches at the Panthéon-Sorbonne University and collaborates on a research seminar at the École Normale Supérieure (Paris), writes for various publications, and regularly participates in committees and juries.