Bastien Cosson's art of living
About Bastien Cosson's "Autopromo" exhibition, on show at the Café des Glaces in Tonnerre (Yonne) until 7 October.
"There is no 'Cosson' style, just a series of attempts by Bastien to produce frames: to make himself feel good, to give meaning to things that have none, to make those he loves exist in exhibition spaces that he too often finds disembodied," writes Olga Rozenblum in this summer's issue of Artpress. The co-founder of Treize in Paris, programmer, curator, teacher and currently associate researcher at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Marseille, devotes an article in the prestigious contemporary art magazine to the painter born in 1988 in Bayonne, a graduate of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Pau and then Paris, who has never ceased to question the status of the artist and the encounter between the work and its public. He even co-founded "Palette Terre" with documentary film-maker Elsa Oliarj-Ines, after being represented by the Bordeaux gallery ACDC. From 2014 to 2021, "Palette Terre" was simply a room in their Paris flat.
"As Olga Rozenblum points out, "Like other artists before him who see their practice as something more than a studio practice, Bastien Cosson wanted to open up a place as a mental space that would enable him to broaden his creative field. "I often ask myself why art spaces are cold, dry, etc. (...) When we arrived in a flat with an extra room, we said to ourselves: what can we do, put in a sofa and make a living room? No, it was much more logical to make an exhibition space", recalls Bastien Cosson, for whom, as the Artpress contributor explains, "being an artist and being a painter are intertwined but distinct activities: being an artist is a relationship with the world; being a painter is painting".
"Autopromo" is the straightforward title of Bastien Cosson's exhibition at the Café des Glaces in Tonnerre, Yonne, from 8 July to 7 October. The project is part of the "Suite" programme launched by the Centre national des arts plastiques (Cnap) in partnership with the Société des auteurs dans les arts graphiques et plastiques (ADAGP), which has joined forces with six independent venues run by artists or young curators keen to renew curatorial practices. The aim of "Suite" is to give public visibility to a selection of projects that have benefited from support for an artistic project or support for contemporary documentary photography from Cnap, by accompanying them as part of an exhibition. Bastien Cosson received Cnap support for an artistic project in 2021, and "Autopromo" follows on from the preparatory project "BONUS MALUS BEBE PHALLUS".
As for the Café des glaces in Tonnerre, it is one of six independent venues forming part of a nationwide network of cultural venues. For contemporary artists who have works of art to sell but not yet a skyrocketing reputation on the contemporary art market, these exhibition spaces, which focus on emergence and experimentation on the fringes of the official art galleries, are artistic relays that take into account all the writings and forms of current creation, judiciously participating in a transversal and decompartmentalized reading of contemporary art. They give pride of place to the artist's commitment to his or her creative work, and offer innovative reflections on how to show and think about both the reality of the creative process and the works of art themselves.
"Bastien Cosson's paintings are images that he projects according to what happens to him in life, and what he wants to do with his own," explains Olga Rozenblum. "To achieve this objective, he uses canvas, usually covered with paint, but more recently also with prints, collages and fabrics. He could just as easily use any other medium: it's a clear and performative choice that he has made in deciding to produce exclusively paintings. That's why his work is so heterogeneous. The basis of this exhibition in Tonnerre: the printing of over 900 images, as if to prove that we can become attached to them. Between paintings and photos, Bastien Cosson uses his life as a source of inspiration.
"I'm clearing my iPhone of photos. I make visible the images that have been with me for years. Carefully sorted, I regularly subject the photos I take to the necessity of their existence. I do the same with my paintings. You might think that I don't produce much, but it's mainly that I erase a lot, both the photos and the paintings. In an egotistical delirium, I print my life on 960 colour pages. I make visible what doesn't interest many people. I do this for myself, Elsa, Cosma, a few friends and, ideally, for painting. Erotic delirium. I display my private life and take pleasure in putting myself in the shoes of a modest exhibitionist. I put my studio on paper, carry it under my arm, put it in my tote-bag, put it in my library or in the hands of my mates. I make this space that has been cluttering me up for too long disappear," writes Bastien Cosson.
His paintings have been exhibited at the international contemporary art fair in Marseille, Art-o-Rama; at Chalet Society, the art gallery in Paris that was the brainchild of Marc-Olivier Wahler, former director of the Palais de Tokyo; at the Préface Gallery in Paris, which no longer exists; and at the FRAC Aquitaine in Bordeaux. Ironically, it was because Bastien Cosson didn't think he knew how to draw well enough to make a career out of it that he went on to develop a different approach to his artistic thinking, placing little importance on know-how. "On the contrary, he likes to surround himself with craftsmen in the making of his pieces," explained Le Bel Ordinaire in 2014, the contemporary art space where Bastien Cosson was exhibiting at the time in Billère, near Pau. "Because the pieces don't matter much, they're just subterfuges for creating discussion." In other words, selling his works of art is of little importance to the painter. "Talking about art, at any time, in any place, is what makes him want to get up in the morning. His friends say that he is the only one among them who truly loves art. Loving art would be the best way for Bastien Cosson to make art; or rather, to be an artist, because that's the way he likes to work, discuss and think.
Illustration: Woman standing behind her telephone screen © Bastin Cosson