Latest news with #CentrePompidou
LeMonde
a day ago
- Entertainment
- LeMonde
Wolfgang Tillmans' photography in action
"They have arrived," wrote visual artist Wolfgang Tillmans in French on his Instagram account on May 16, captioning a photograph showing trucks in front of the Centre Pompidou in Paris. It was a curious ballet: Since mid-March, the National Museum of Modern Art has been emptying its permanent collection, dispersing it among various institutions and storage sites during a major renovation of the building that is set to last five years. Yet here were new works arriving, all by the 56-year-old German contemporary artist, who had been invited by the institution to create the Centre Pompidou's final exhibition before the renovations began. From June 13 to September 22, within the 6,000 square meters of the Public Information Library (Bpi), visitors can immerse themselves in Tillmans' work. Spanning more than three decades, this ever-evolving body of work brims with avenues for reflection and is marked by a strong political commitment (pro-LGBT, pro-European, pro-reception of refugees), while at the crossroads of various photographic genres (landscape, portrait, abstraction, documentary).
The Verge
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Verge
AI residencies are trying to change the conversation around artificial art
At a recent exhibition in Copenhagen, visitors stepped into a dark room and were met by an unusual host: a jaguar that watched the crowd, selected individuals, and began to share stories about her daughter, her rainforest, and the fires that once threatened her home — the Bolivian Amazon. The live interaction with Huk, an AI-driven creature, is tailored to each visitor based on visual cues. Bolivian Australian artist Violeta Ayala created the piece during an arts residency at Mila, one of the world's leading AI research centers. These residencies, usually hosted by tech labs, museums, or academic centers, offer artists access to tools, compute, and collaborators to support creative experimentation with AI. 'My goal was to build a robot that could represent something more than human; something incorruptible,' Ayala says. Ayala's jaguar is a clever use of early AI, but it is also emblematic of a wider movement: a fast-growing crop of artist residencies that put AI tools directly in creators' hands while shaping how the technology is judged by audiences, lawmakers, and courts. Residencies like these have expanded rapidly in recent years, with new programs emerging across Europe, North America, and Asia — like the Max Planck Institute and the SETI Institute programs. Many technologists describe them as a form of soft power. Pieces by artists who have participated in AI art residencies have been featured in galleries such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Centre Pompidou in Paris. One of the newest programs was started by Villa Albertine, the French American cultural organization. In early 2025, the organization created a dedicated AI track, adding four new residents per year to the 60 artists, thinkers, and creators it hosts annually. The initiative was announced at an AI summit in Paris with French Minister of Culture Rachida Dati and backed by Fidji Simo, OpenAI's CEO of applications. 'We're not choosing sides so much as opening space for inquiry,' says Mohamed Bouabdallah, Villa Albertine's director. 'Some residents may critique AI or explore its risks.' In 2024, Villa Albertine also hosted a summit called Arts in the Age of AI, drawing more than 500 attendees and participants from OpenAI, Mozilla, SAG-AFTRA, and both US and French copyright offices, according to Bouabdallah. Bouabdallah says these programs are designed to 'select the artist, not just their work.' They provide artists with the time and resources needed to explore art projects that use AI. 'Even if someone uses AI extensively, they must articulate their intent. It's not just about output—it's about authorship.' As he puts it, 'The tool must be behind the human.' This kind of cultural framing is meant to promote artistic production, but it can also influence how AI is viewed by the public, pushing back on the often negative perception around AI art. 'An AI developer might want to change minds about what's legitimate by packaging the use of AI in a form that resembles traditional artistic practice,' says Trystan Goetze, an ethicist and director at Cornell University. 'That could make it seem more acceptable.' 'The real value here is giving artists the space to grapple with that themselves.' Residencies may support specific artists, but they don't address the broader concerns around AI art. 'Changing the context from random users prompting models in Discord to formal residencies doesn't alter the core issues,' Goetze says. 'The labor is still being taken.' These legal questions around authorship and compensation remain unresolved. In the US, class-action lawsuits by artists against Stability AI, Midjourney, and others are testing whether generative models trained on copyrighted work constitute fair use. Courts will decide these questions, but public sentiment may shape the boundaries: if AI-generated art is culturally perceived as derivative or exploitative, it becomes harder to defend its legitimacy in policy or law, and vice versa. A similar dynamic played out over a century ago. In 1908, the US Supreme Court ruled that piano rolls, then a new format for reproducing music, were not subject to copyright, because they weren't readable by the human eye. Widespread backlash from musicians, publishers, and the public spurred Congress to pass the 1909 Copyright Act, introducing a compulsory licensing system that required payment for mechanical reproductions. 'These models do have a recognizable aesthetic,' Goetze says. 'The more we're exposed to these visuals, the more 'normal' they might seem.' That normalization, he speculates, might soften resistance not just to AI art but also to AI in other domains. 'There's always been debate around inspiration versus plagiarism,' Bouabdallah says. 'The real value here is giving artists the space to grapple with that themselves.' Ayala argues that 'the problem is not that AI copies — humans copy constantly — it's that the benefits are not distributed equally: the big companies benefit most.' Despite those challenges, Ayala sees residencies as important sites of experimentation. 'We can't just critique that AI was built by privileged men, we have to actively build alternatives,' she says. 'It's not about what I want AI to be: it already is what it is. We're transitioning as a species in how we relate, remember, and co-create.'
CNN
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- CNN
This artist just spray painted a public square in Switzerland
Thousands of artists are being featured at hundreds of galleries as Art Basel opens its doors in the Swiss city this week. But before visitors even enter the art fair, they will cross a large public square sprayed with white and magenta paint — an artwork by Katharina Grosse. The German artist is known for using spray paint to transform spaces, from an abandoned property in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans to a condemned structure in the Rockaways, New York. Her massive, in-situ paintings have been commissioned by contemporary art museums like MoMA PS1 in New York and the Centre Pompidou-Metz in Paris. In Basel, her work covers the Messeplatz, and the structures — from a fountain to benches and bins — it contains. 'Even the clock will get painted a little bit,' she told CNN in early June, before she started painting, referring to the huge timepiece on the facade of one of the exhibition halls. That required some logistical preparation, like emptying the fountain and covering it with an anti-graffiti coating so the paint can be washed away later, explained Natalia Grabowska, of the Serpentine Gallery in London, who curated the work. The square measures several thousand square meters, or about the size of a soccer field, said Grabowska. She added that Grosse is someone who can 'work at scale and really transform spaces.' Grosse says that the sheer size of the work, her largest to date in an outdoor setting, was a challenge for her. 'For me, it's an amazing possibility to develop my work further and test my thinking and painting,' she said. Although the artist created models of the work beforehand, she said that things always change on site as she responds to the situation on the ground. 'I have a lot of different surfaces. I have distances to bridge. I have to make it work and be vivid but coherent,' she said. The fact that her 'whole painting has to be invented on site' means that it might be 'the youngest work at the fair,' Grosse added. That made it particularly interesting to watch her paint, said Grabowska. 'She works very intuitively with her body and sees where it takes her,' she said. 'She walks back and forth — it is a bit like unscripted choreography, a bit of a dance.' Grosse's work might also be the shortest lived at the fair. After seven days, the paint will be peeled and pressure-washed away. 'I think it's the shortest lifespan of a piece I've done outdoors,' said Grosse. 'There's a beauty that it appears for a minute, and it's only in your memories and the pictures we've taken and the way we talk about it.' Still, she hopes that for a few days, it can help transport visitors. 'It's almost like a poetic space that's slipped under your familiar existence,' she said. 'Her work is so powerful that you get immersed in it instantly,' said Grabowska. 'You can't ignore it.' Grosse also hopes that her work will help people reconsider what forms painting can take, as they enter one of the world's most important art fairs. It 'doesn't have to be like a pancake on a wall,' she said.
CNN
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- CNN
This artist just spray painted a public square in Switzerland
Thousands of artists are being featured at hundreds of galleries as Art Basel opens its doors in the Swiss city this week. But before visitors even enter the art fair, they will cross a large public square sprayed with white and magenta paint — an artwork by Katharina Grosse. The German artist is known for using spray paint to transform spaces, from an abandoned property in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans to a condemned structure in the Rockaways, New York. Her massive, in-situ paintings have been commissioned by contemporary art museums like MoMA PS1 in New York and the Centre Pompidou-Metz in Paris. In Basel, her work covers the Messeplatz, and the structures — from a fountain to benches and bins — it contains. 'Even the clock will get painted a little bit,' she told CNN in early June, before she started painting, referring to the huge timepiece on the facade of one of the exhibition halls. That required some logistical preparation, like emptying the fountain and covering it with an anti-graffiti coating so the paint can be washed away later, explained Natalia Grabowska, of the Serpentine Gallery in London, who curated the work. The square measures several thousand square meters, or about the size of a soccer field, said Grabowska. She added that Grosse is someone who can 'work at scale and really transform spaces.' Grosse says that the sheer size of the work, her largest to date in an outdoor setting, was a challenge for her. 'For me, it's an amazing possibility to develop my work further and test my thinking and painting,' she said. Although the artist created models of the work beforehand, she said that things always change on site as she responds to the situation on the ground. 'I have a lot of different surfaces. I have distances to bridge. I have to make it work and be vivid but coherent,' she said. The fact that her 'whole painting has to be invented on site' means that it might be 'the youngest work at the fair,' Grosse added. That made it particularly interesting to watch her paint, said Grabowska. 'She works very intuitively with her body and sees where it takes her,' she said. 'She walks back and forth — it is a bit like unscripted choreography, a bit of a dance.' Grosse's work might also be the shortest lived at the fair. After seven days, the paint will be peeled and pressure-washed away. 'I think it's the shortest lifespan of a piece I've done outdoors,' said Grosse. 'There's a beauty that it appears for a minute, and it's only in your memories and the pictures we've taken and the way we talk about it.' Still, she hopes that for a few days, it can help transport visitors. 'It's almost like a poetic space that's slipped under your familiar existence,' she said. 'Her work is so powerful that you get immersed in it instantly,' said Grabowska. 'You can't ignore it.' Grosse also hopes that her work will help people reconsider what forms painting can take, as they enter one of the world's most important art fairs. It 'doesn't have to be like a pancake on a wall,' she said.
LeMonde
2 days ago
- General
- LeMonde
Why the Centre Pompidou, not even 50 years old, must close for five years
The idea of losing a lung is far from comforting. Even if you are told it is the only way to save the rest of your body, you would likely be inclined, if such an operation were ever recommended, to resist or try to negotiate. The reactions to the announcements made by Laurent Le Bon, the president of the Centre Pompidou, throughout 2023 – that the building by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers would close for major renovations for five years – could be interpreted in the same way. The strike involving staff, the opinion pieces and petitions signed by figures from the cultural world, the grievances voiced by local residents, neighborhood shopkeepers, art lovers and other regular visitors were all attempts to ensure that this extraordinary engine of urban energy could continue operating − at least partially − during the renovation. The prospect of its closure has been all the harder to accept given that this icon of 20 th -century architecture is not even 50 years old. Parisians still remember the renovation work in the late 1990s that already deprived them of access for two years, and the expected duration of the new project now seems somewhat excessive. The entire problem with architecture from the second half of the 20 th century (and the decades that have followed) lies in these assumptions. In reality, according to Boris Hamzeian, architectural historian and author of Centre Pompidou. Le défi du Total Design ("Centre Pompidou and the Challenge of Total Design," 2024), "for a building from that era, 50 years is already quite old."; the materials of the modern era are less durable than those of the past. But the structure of the Centre Pompidou was designed to accommodate this, and even more, to ensure – as President Pompidou requested of the young competition winners in 1971 – that the building would "last 500 years." This lightweight, entirely metal structure, to which all of the building's technical systems are attached, embodies the principle of flexibility at the core of the project and guarantees its durability: namely, the possibility of replacing elements and reorganizing them as needed. In fact, since its opening in 1977, the space has been in constant transformation.
