Thursday 11 March 2010 at 12.30pm
On the principle of an ABC.... : In the form of an open dialogue with the public, this programme of gatherings launched in 2006 explored the museum's collections and the vocabulary of contemporary art.
At what point can a work really be considered to be finished? Where do the the boundaries lie between abstraction and figuration? Does a work have a "use-by" date, like the memory of the artist who created it? These questions and others were explored through Christine Crozat's delicate work Coiffe d'Arlésienne (2001-2002).
Fragile in Japan paper with its outcrops of graphite, the work embodies the memory of a painting by the Arles artist, Antoine Raspal, which resonates in the room like a figure from history. « S for ... Stop! » set out to explore the tipping point at which the artist judges his work to be complete, his message conveyed; when he can let the work take its place before the public. And, indeed, within a museum, which is charged with conserving it even when the very fragility of its substance seems to defy the notion of conservation.
