Actes Sud – serie

A catalogue raisonné of never-before-seen abandoned projects by the artist Sophie Calle. ‘I hate things being finished. Death is final… Life is in the ‘almost finished’.’ - Pablo Picasso ‘But when everything comes to an end, what will become of the ideas that went nowhere, that were biding their time in boxes, in coffins? Before we die, we must catalogue our attempts, our first drafts, our abandoned projects, and give life to our intentions. It’s a way of putting an end to it.’ - Sophie Calle Accompanying her exhibition ‘A toi de faire, ma mignonne’ at the Musée Picasso in Paris, Sophie Calle invites the reader to explore a catalogue raisonné of her unfinished ideas. These accounts, each stamped with a red verdict giving the reason that they were not completed, offer a parallel to her True Stories, a collection that has been regularly reissued since 1994. In this landmark publication, which reveals the hidden aspects of an artistic practice spanning decades, the main themes of her work come to light: coincidence, chance encounters, and incompletion as an ending in and of itself; and trying and failing as the necessary byproduct of the artistic act.

Art faber is an umbrella term for works of art – whether pictorial, literary, photographic, musical or cinematographic – whose main or secondary themes are work, business and the world of economics. The word faber is rooted in the foundations of the economy. It is the Latin word for “smith” and the etymological root of Romance language of “making” and “manufacturing”, as well as the essence of Homo faber. Homo faber or “man the maker” is the toolmaker, the manufacturer of machines and consumer products, the main protagonist of secondary industries, but also of the tertiary, service sector. Homo faber is also a producer of life, especially in terms of cultivation and animal husbandry – the farmer, the breeder, the tamer, the transformer, adapting the natural world to our needs: harnessing animals’ strength for work, creating consumer products, such as milk and meat; and processing wool and hide for artisanal ends. For several decades now, however, this manufacture of life forms has raised several ethical and moral questions about animal well-being, food strategies, sustainable development, ecology, short-and-long term disaster management, and intensive breeding and its impact on the environment and consumers. This first issue of the Cahiers de l’Art faber tackles the field of photography through the “Bestiaux” portrait series begun by the artist Yann Arthus-Bertrand thirty years ago. In the series, the artist looks at the privileged relationship between breeder and livestock, inviting us to reflect upon the economic vocation of their animals, and on the system in which animals are produced, used and consumed. As wells as a previously unpublished interview with the photographer by Catherine Briat, the issue features articles from the historian Éric Baratay on domestication, the economist Jean-Marc Dupuy on the history of animal production in France, and the legal expert Jean-Pierre Marguénaud on the issue of animal rights, as well as a presentation of the results of a Havas-BETC survey into the contemporary relationship between humans and animals by Olivier Vigneaux, the chair of BETC advertising agency’s Digital Studio. With this first Cahier, the Art Faber collective inaugurates a series of articles exploring major societal themes today in an attempt to create a cross-fertilization of two disciplines that are oft considered unrelated: contemporary art and economics, to encourage debate, expand scope for fresh interpretations, and encourage dialogue between the two fields.

Since a young age, Lorenzo has delighted audiences with his spectacular horsemanship and stunning equestrian shows. Over the years, increasing numbers of horses, black and white, have taken the stage with him, whirling dervishes of energy and virtuosity performing to perfection in spectacles imbued with poetry and magic. At the final curtain, every show is greeted with lengthy standing ovations. Because what the audience has witnessed is not just Lorenzo’s technical prowess but a unique relationship between artist and horse. Through the sensitive lense of the Swiss photographer Heini Heitz, we follow Lorenzo at his secret ranch in the Camargue and also in the arena in performance. He talks about his special relationship to his horses, and how he trains sixteen at a time in total freedom to create his incredible feats of showmanship. We discover how he works with foals, how he lives alongside horses, and what they become in their retirement. We also meet Lorenzo the instructor teaching equestrian acrobatics to increasing numbers of young people while constantly inventing new figures to astound us in the arena.

The book traces the transformations undergone by a series of portraits from the exhibition ‘Les Aveugles’ following a storm. Mould had taken hold of the photographs, and the author could not bring herself to throw them away as they were.Shortly before the opening of my exhibition “A toi de faire, ma mignonne” at the Picasso Museum in Paris, a storm caused damage to my storeroom and mould spores seeped into “Les Aveugles”. According to the conservators, it would have been better to destroy the works. But this series had meant too much to me to simply throw it away. So I decided to let the mould take its course, whilst taking photographs as time went on.