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After the death of King Hlothair, the last man of the blood of the great Hlodowig, or Clovis, whose Frankish warriors had driven the Romans out of Gaul, and who himself became the "eldest son of the Church," his kingdom had been divided among his four sons, of whom the eldest died in possession of the lands of Bordeaux; and left his treasure to be taken by the next brother, Gunthram, and his lands to be divided 25 among all three of the surviving heirs.

Mutual suspicion defeated its own ends, and the ridiculous principles on which the division was made were the mainspring of nearly all the quarrelling that followed. Sigebert, the youngest brother, reigned over Austrasia, which stretched eastward from the north of Gaul through Germany towards the Slavs and Saxons. Hilperik reigned north and westward of the Loire in Neustria. But each of the three owned towns and lands in various parts of France without regard to the broad lines of division which have just been indicated. Of them all Hilperik, the King of Neustria, was the most uxorious and effeminate.

Among the royal waiting women was a young and very beautiful Frank called Fredegond, on whom the King had already cast a too-favourable eye; and the opportunity of his absence on an expedition to the North was seized by the girl in a way which showed at once the unscrupulous and subtle treachery which was the keynote of her character. The Queen was brought to bed of her fourth child, a daughter, while the King was still from home.

By Fredegond's suggestion, the infant was held at the font by Audowere herself and christened Hildeswinda. Hlodowig at once took advantage of the trap into which the innocent and unsuspecting mother had fallen. As soon as he returned he sent away Audowere and her baby to a monastery at Le Mans, on the pretext that it was illegal for the godmother of his own daughter to be his wife. He then made Fredegond his queen. The conduct of the younger brother Sigebert was at once more dignified and more politically secure. At Metz in he married Brunhilda, the younger daughter 26 of Athanagild, King of the Goths, whose capital was at Toledo, a woman whose courage, beauty, and resource, have remained a byword in history and song.

The splendour and success of this alliance roused Hilperik's jealousy, and he lost no time in sending an embassy to Spain asking the hand of Galeswintha, the elder sister of his brother's wife. After much negotiation, the girl left the palace of Toledo on her long march to the north. Her own presentiment of coming evil was strengthened by the tears of her reluctant mother, who could with difficulty be persuaded to leave the procession that escorted the princess across the Pyrenees.

By way of Narbonne, Carcassonne, Poitiers, and Tours, Galeswintha moved slowly across France towards her husband, with all her Goths and Franks behind her, and a train of baggage waggons groaning beneath the treasures of her dowry. She made her entry into Rouen on a towering car, set with plates of glittering silver, and all the Neustrian warriors stood in a great circle round her with drawn swords, crying aloud the oath of their allegiance.

Before them all, the King swore constancy and faith to her, and on the morning following he publicly made present to her of the five southern cities that were his wedding gift. In the general proscription of immorality that had followed the embassy to Spain, she was swept away like the rest, and she knew when to yield. Like the viper in the grass she lay hidden, gathering up her venom for a more deadly blow. So harmless did she seem that she was soon allowed to return to her former humble post as one of the waiting women of the palace. It was not long before she struck. The sensual and shallow nature of the King had soon wearied of his new bride, whose chief charm was not, it would appear, her beauty.

A moment came when weariness became disgust. The sight of Fredegond recalled his former passion, and the 27 proud princess of the Goths soon had the mortification of seeing the affections of her husband transferred to her waiting woman. But this was not enough. A few days afterwards Queen Galeswintha was found strangled in her bed, in Hilperik was not long in adding the dignity of queen to the position of wife which he had already given to the triumphant Fredegond.

The sad young figure of this Spanish princess, brought up against her will from sunnier courts into the midst of Merovingian brutality in the dark palaces of Neustria, is one that affected many minds with compassion for her fate. The story of the crystal lamp that hung above her tomb in Rouen, which fell upon the marble pavement, yet was neither broken nor extinguished, was but a poetical expression of the universal pity.

Sigebert was enlisted on the side of justice, and Gunthram quickly followed him, with the object of making peace between his brothers. The King of Neustria was condemned to forfeit certain cities as punishment for the murder of his queen. But the blood of Galeswintha still cried out for vengeance from the ground, and the horrible series of murders that filled the century began with Hilperik's unwarranted aggressions on the territory of his brother Sigebert.

Long months passed in pillage, in ineffectual attempts at reconciliation, in perpetual reprisals. At last Brunhilda rose and insisted that her husband should make an end with the murderer of her sister. So Sigebert and his army moved forward to a combined attack and chased Hilperik to the walls 28 of Paris.

Thither, when Fredegond and her husband had fled to Rouen and then to Tournai, Brunhilda came southwards to meet the conqueror who soon marched north again to be crowned at Vitry, leaving his wife behind to guard the capital in triumph. Now came Fredegond's opportunity. For when Hilperik was besieged by Sigebert in the city of Tournai and sore pressed, Fredegond saw her enemy delivered into her hand. They murdered him as he sat at table, and were instantly cut to pieces by the courtiers. Hilperik at once took advantage of the confusion to march on Paris, and the horror of Brunhilda may be imagined as she realised that the murderer of her husband and of her sister was approaching the city in which the widow and her three orphans were defenceless.

Her son afterwards the second Hildebert , was then but five years old, and by the help of Gundobald she was able to contrive his escape, lowering him in a basket through an opening in the city walls. Then began another act in this dark drama, which ended very differently to the expectations of Fredegond. For with his father had come young Merowig to Paris, and whether from fascinations that had some deep ulterior design, or whether as is more probable 29 from the natural attraction felt by the young warrior for a lovely princess in distress, Merowig fell hopelessly in love with the fair Brunhilda, who was but twenty-eight and could have been very little older than her second husband.

He saw, however, the danger of prematurely confessing his passion, and quietly went off on a foraging expedition to Berri and Touraine at the bidding of his father. But, no doubt, he was aware before starting of Hilperik's intention to send Brunhilda to Rouen; for it was not long before he marched northwards after a visit to his mother Audowere in her prison at Le Mans , [4] and came to Rouen himself. The meeting cannot have been a surprise to the daughter of the Spanish Goths, and whatever may have been her intentions, she proved so willing to console herself that a very short time elapsed before she was the wife of Merowig.

Strangely enough the Bishop of Rouen at the time was the same Pretextatus who had been Merowig's godfather at his baptism. But it was not merely canonical law, or even certain sentimental precepts, that were offended by a union that was later on to cost its celebrant his life. The suspicions of Hilperik were instantly aroused. Brunhilda's young son had already been accepted as their King by the Austrasian warriors at Metz. Now Brunhilda herself had taken what was evidently the second step in a 30 deep-laid plot to reassert her own superiority and ruin Neustria.

It can have scarcely needed the hatred of Fredegond, both for her natural rival and for the son of Audowere, to urge Hilperik to speedy action. He hastened to Rouen with such swiftness that the newly-married pair were entirely taken by surprise in the first few months of their new happiness. They fled for sanctuary to the little wooden church of St. Martin, whose timbers rested on the very ramparts of the town.

No entreaties nor cajoleries at first availed to make them leave their refuge. At last, they agreed to come out if the King would swear not to separate them. His oath was a crafty one as it is given by Gregory of Tours: For after two or three days of feasting and apparent reconciliation he hurried off with the unwilling bridegroom in his train, and left Brunhilda under a strict guard at Rouen. The very first incident that followed this unhappy marriage was the siege of Soissons by the men of Neustria, and in this coincidence the King saw further confirmation of the plots of Brunhilda in which she had so nearly secured the assistance of Merowig against Fredegond and his father.

He at once ordered his miserable son, whose intellect was incapable of ambitious schemes, and whose only fault had been an unconsidered passion, to be stripped of his arms, and to have the long hair cut from his head that was a mark of royal blood. The later adventures of the wretched Merowig, an exile and an outlaw, hunted through his father's kingdom, are too intricate to follow. After a long imprisonment in the sanctuary of Tours Cathedral, he escaped only to be murdered by the emissaries of the implacable Fredegond in a 31 farmhouse north of Arras.

Meanwhile his wife, Brunhilda, had long ago been set free to go from Rouen to Austrasia. She was safer across the border, while the follies of another Merowig might make her dangerous. Her flight, at this unexpected opportunity of freedom, was so rapid that she left the greater part of her baggage and treasure with the Bishop of Rouen, who was once more unwise enough to compromise himself in order to be of service to his godchild's wife.

For Pretextatus not only supplied Merowig with money in his various efforts to escape, but was so careless in his demands upon the friendship of the surrounding nobles, and in scattering bribes to gain them over, that his treasonable practices soon came to the ears of Hilperik. That avaricious and perpetually needy ruler was not long in securing the remainder of the treasure of which tidings had so opportunely reached him, and he then immediately summoned Pretextatus to answer before a solemn ecclesiastical council in Paris, as to his relations with Brunhilda, and his disposition of the money she had left with him.

The celebrated trial that followed, of which Gregory of Tours was at once the historian and the noblest figure, was ended by the brutal interference of Fredegond, who could not be patient with the law's delays, and forced the Bishop of Rouen to fly for refuge to the island of Jersey where he lived in exile for some years, until the time arrived for Fredegond's full vengeance to be consummated.

That time was marked, as was every crisis in the blood-stained career of Fredegond, by a murder. The weak and effeminate King himself fell a victim, and was slain in by unknown assassins as he was out hunting. Leav 32 ing for awhile in peace the old ecclesiastic who had had the insolence to come back to the dignities from which she had driven him, Fredegond turned at once to plot the destruction of her lifelong enemy, Brunhilda, who was now in a position of far greater security and honour than herself.

But her emissary was obliged to return unsuccessful, and had his feet and hands cut off for his pains. A second attempt upon both mother and son failed equally, and then Fredegond, balked of her higher prey, took the victim that was nearest, and went out from Rueil to Rouen. It was not long before the quarrel that she sought was occasioned by the bishop, who seems to have added to his usual unwisdom a courage born of the hardships of seven years of exile.

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These first martyrs did not suffer in vain. But as the importance of Lutetia grew upon the upper waters of the Seine, the value of this elbow of the stream grew greater every year; and by the days of Diocletian, Rotomagus had become the sea-gate of the capital, and the chief town of the province. But his first actions strangely enough are connected with the Church that overshadowed so much of public life. Je ne suis pas Charlie 1. Every good network interests us.

Answering a taunt flung at him by the deposed queen, he bitterly drew the contrast between their present positions, and their former relation to each other, and bade Fredegond look to the salvation of her soul and the education of her son, and leave the wickedness that had stained so many years of her life with blood. She left him on the instant and without a word, "felle fervens," says Gregory; and indeed it was not long before her vengeance broke out in the usual way. As the bishop knelt in prayer soon afterwards before the altar of the Cathedral, her assassin drove his knife beneath his armpit, and Pretextatus was carried bleeding mortally to his chamber.

Thither came the queen to gloat over her latest victim, begging him to say whose hand it was had done the deed, that so due punishment might be at once exacted. But he knew well who was the real murderess. The whole town was cast into distress and bitter mourning by this pitiless assassination, and Fredegond 33 had accomplished her will with so much cunning that the crime could with the greatest difficulty be legally traced to its true origin. For she had taken advantage of the ecclesiastical jealousy which unfortunately existed side by side with the popular reverence and love.

Melantius, who had for seven years enjoyed the privileges of office and dispensed his favours in the bishopric, had seen himself deposed with very mingled feelings by the exile from Jersey. His own nominees were doubtless not unwilling to emphasise his grievance, and Fredegond found in his disappointed ambition a soil only too ready to receive the poisonous seed she was so anxious to implant. Among the inferior clergy was an archdeacon whose hatred of Pretextatus was as great, and more reckless in its expression.

By him a slave was easily discovered ready to commit this or any other crime on the promise of freedom for himself and his family. A guarantee of favours to come was provided in some ready money paid beforehand, and the blow was struck while Pretextatus prayed. Romans and Franks alike were horrified at the dastardly outrage.

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Woman of God.
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The former could scarcely act outside the city walls, but the Franks felt more secure in the ancient privileges of their race, and some of their nobles at once gave public expression to the hatred felt by every citizen for the instigator of the crime. Led by one of their own chiefs, a deputation of these Frankish nobles rode up to Fredegond's palace at Rueil.

They delivered a message to the effect that justice should be done, and that the murderess must at last put a term to all her crimes. Her reply was even more rapid and fearless than usual. She handed the speaker a cup of honeyed wine, after the custom of his country; he drank the poison, and fell dead upon the spot. A kind of panic fell upon his comrades, and extended even to the town of Rouen itself.

Like some monstrous incarnation of evil, Fredegond seemed to have settled 34 near their city, followed by a trail of death. Her very breath, it was imagined, exhaled the poisons of the sorcery and witchcraft that accompanied and rendered possible her countless assassinations. She seemed beyond the pale of human interference, and invested with some infernal omnipotence that baffled all pursuit or vengeance. Every church in Rouen closed its doors, for the head of their Church lay foully murdered, and his murderer was not yet punished.

Leudowald of Bayeux took over the sacred office in the interval of consternation that ensued, before another successor could be appointed, and he insisted that not another Mass should be celebrated throughout the diocese until the criminal had been brought to justice.

Thierry Laget

Night and day he had to pay the penalty for his boldness by being forced to keep careful guard against the hired bravos of his unscrupulous enemy, who was now fairly started in a career of bloodshed, that she would never end until her vengeance was complete. At last she wore out his courage and his strength alike, and the inquiry gradually faded away before the persistent and sinister vindictiveness of the royal witch at Rueil. She soon was strong enough to put her creature Melantius back in his episcopal chair, and he was content to officiate upon the very stones that were still stained with the innocent blood of Pretextatus.

One more proof of the absolute mastery her intrigues had given her was afforded by Fredegond's next action. Its heartless cynicism was but a natural consequence of so much previous guilt. For she deliberately summoned before her the slave whose assassin's knife she had bought, reproached him openly with his hideous crime, and handed him over to the dead bishop's relations. Under torture this miserable wretch confessed the full details of the murder, the names of his accomplices, and the guilt of Fredegond.

The nephew of Pretextatus, apparently aware that he would 35 never get satisfaction on the principals, leapt upon the prey that had so contemptuously been flung to him, and cut the slave to pieces with his sword. And this was the sole reparation that was ever given for the murder of the bishop. But the people never forgot the Pretextatus who lived for centuries in their memory as a martyred saint.

His terrible fate has more than atoned, in their eyes, for the impolitic events of his earlier life, or his unwise affection for the unfortunate prince he had baptised. With this last crime that part of the Merovingian tragedy with which Rouen is connected comes to a close. Nor have I space here to follow out the actors to the curtain's fall. In other pages their various fortunes and their dark calamities may be followed to a conclusion.

The next chapter in the history of the town is that of the Northmen, and of the founding of that mighty dynasty which was to spread its rule across the Channel, and to gather the towns of England under the same sceptre that swayed the citizens of Rouen. But before the coming of the Northmen, there are a few more slight facts that I must chronicle if only to explain the desert and the ruins that alone were Rouen when the first pirate galley swept up to the quay and anchored close to where the western door of the Cathedral now looks out across the Parvis.

The monk Fridegode relates that it was in that the first stones of what was afterwards to be the famous Abbey of St. Ouen [5] were laid by the first Hlothair. Others say that a church founded nearly two centuries before was restored by the son of Hlotild 36 the holy Queen and dedicated first to the Holy Apostles, and then to St. Its name was changed to the one it bears now in when the body of St. Ouen was moved there on Ascension Day three years after his death.

But not a trace of the original church remains, and most probably it was built almost entirely of wood, like that shrine of St. Martin in which Brunhilda and her young husband fled for sanctuary in about the year Its history is chiefly confined to the airy fantasies of poets, and is completely justified of its existence by Beranger's verses:. Early in the next century occurs the name of a saint who was destined to be famous in the story of the town 37 from its earliest days of civic life until the chaos of the Revolution, in which the old order fell to pieces and carried so many picturesque and harmless ceremonies into the limbo where it swept away the ancient abuses of despotic monarchy.

For with the name of St. Romain, who enlarged St. Mellon's primitive "cathedral" even more than St. Victrice had done, is connected one of the most extraordinary privileges that any ecclesiastical body ever possessed. The list of the prisoners who bore the "Fierte Saint Romain" [7] extends from to , the chapel where the ceremony was performed still stands in the Place de la Haute Vieille Tour, and the manuscripts in which the released prisoners' names with their accomplices and crimes are recorded, furnish some of the 38 most interesting and practically unknown details of the intimate life of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

I shall have occasion to refer to them so fully later on that I must for the present confine myself merely to abolishing a myth, and laying some slight foundation for the facts that are to follow—facts so astonishing and so authentic that they need no aid from legend or romance. Yet the miracle that is related to-day about St. Romain is so persistent and so widely spread, that it must be told, if only to explain the many allusions contained in picture, in carving, and in song, [8] throughout the tale of Rouen, and in the very stones and windows of her most sacred buildings.

The story is but another variant of our own St. Martha and the Tarasque in Provence, of many others in almost every country. It is but one more personification of that struggle of Good against Evil, Light against Darkness, Truth against Error, Civilisation against Barbarism, which is as old as the book of Genesis and as the history of the world. It has been represented by Apollo and the python, by Anubis and the serpent, by the Grand'gueule of Poitiers, by the dragons of Louvain and of St.

The general truth was appropriated by each particular locality until every church and town had its peculiar monster slain by its especial saint. Thus at Bordeaux there was St. Martial, thus Metz had St. Vigor, Rouen had St. The emblem of eternal strife had become a universal allegory acceptable in every place and in all centuries, and so commonly believed, that until some poignant necessity arose for its assertion, 39 it was never—as we shall see—mentioned even by those historians of the life of St.

Romain, who might more especially be expected to know the details of his life. Romain, so the fable runs, delivered Rouen from an immense and voracious monster, called the "Gargouille," who dwelt in the morasses and reed-beds of the river, and devoured the inhabitants of the town. All this is a very pretty example of a holy hypothesis constructed to explain facts that arose in a very different manner; and though it is no pleasant task to undermine a picturesque belief, yet the chain of events which led to its universal acceptance are too remarkable to be left without a firm historical basis, or at any rate a suggestion more in accordance with the science of dates than that which was related by the Church throughout so many centuries.

For there is no disputing that if the "miracle" had in actual fact occurred, some mention would have been made of it after the death of St. Romain in , or at any rate after , when the historians had the whole life of St. Ouen and his times to describe. Ouen himself nor Dudo of St. In , when an assembly was held by William the Conqueror at Lillebonne, with the express object of regulating privileges, not a word was said by the Archbishop of Rouen there present about the most extraordinary privilege enjoyed by his chapter.

It is only at the beginning of the thirteenth century that the inevitable quarrels between the civil and ecclesiastical powers over a criminal claimed by both can first be traced; and it may be safely argued that while the privilege was not questioned it did not exist. It is as late as that the first mention of the famous "Gargouille" itself occurs in any reputable document. There are, therefore, far more numerous and more authentic traces of the privilege than of the miracle; the effect is undoubted; it remains to conjecture its prime cause; and as I shall show at greater length in its right place, there is every reason to believe that the origin of the privilege was one of the great Mystery Plays of the Ascension, and that it was first exercised between and Romain's firm stand against the old dragon of idolatry and paganism, whose last remnants were swept out of Normandy by his firm and militant Christianity.

This is an age of great churchmen. While the Roman Empire lasted, the Church had been dependent and submissive to the Emperors. When the Franks arrived her attitude was changed, for to these barbarous and ungodly strangers she stood as a beneficent superior, and a steadfast shield over the Gallo-Roman people. So it was that the bishops became the protectors of towns, the counsellors of kings, the owners of large and rich tracts of land, the sole possessors of knowledge and of letters in an age of darkest brutality and ignorance.

With the names of St. Romain in Normandy at this time are bound up those of St. Herbland, under whose protection was one of the oldest parishes of Rouen. His church stood until quite modern years in the Parvis of the Cathedral at the end of the Rue de la Grosse Horloge. On various islands in the stream, for the very soil of Rouen at this time was as uncertain as its chronicles, were built the chapels to St. Eloi, and other saints. From there the line passed to the Place de la Calende and the Eau de Robec, while the fourth side was marked by the waters of the Robec itself.

This was the Rouen which welcomed Charlemagne in , who came to celebrate Easter in the Cathedral he was to benefit so largely, among the canons who had only been organised into a regular chapter, living in one community, about nine years before. The great Emperor not only helped the Cathedral in his lifetime, but left it a legacy in his will, for the town, in gratitude for his benefactions, had furnished twenty-eight "ships" to help him pursue his enemies, out of the fleet which had already begun to exploit the rich commercial possibilities of Britain, and to enter into trading engagements even with the Byzantine emperors.

With the second coming of Charlemagne at the dawn of the ninth century, the next period in the history of Rouen closes. At his death the semblance of an empire, into which his mighty personality had welded the warring anarchies of Western Europe, crumbled back into its constituent fragments. His was an empire wholly aristocratic, and wholly German.

After Charles Martel had driven out the Saracens from Tours and Poitiers, it absorbed Gaul also in its rule, but Charlemagne was never other than a Teutonic ruler over Franks. He was one of the makers of Europe but not one of the creators of the Kingdom of France. It was not until his empire crumbled at his death that those persistent entities, France and Germany, made their appearance.

But Normandy had much to go through before she became a part of that kingdom which she did so much to make. In a great fire had destroyed most of the city of Rouen. Thirty years later a plague had decimated her inhabitants. The Merovingians had 43 left her ruined and depopulated. Though spasmodic efforts at prosperity and strength appeared during the great Emperor's lifetime, the town had not yet reached anything approaching to a solid basis of civic or commercial power.

Its attempts were ruined by the anarchy that followed Charlemagne's decease, and there was little left for the first Danes to plunder when the first galleys of the Northern pirates swept up the Seine in Normanni, si bono rigidoque dominatu reguntur, strenuissimi sunt et in arduis rebus invicti omnes excellunt et cunctis hostibus fortiores superare contendunt. Alioquin sese vicissim dilaniant atque consumunt. Rebelliones enim cupiunt, seditiones enim appetunt, et ad omne nefas prompti sunt. Rectitudinis ergo forti censura coerceantur et fraeno disciplinae per tramitem justitiae gradiri compellantur.

THE unity of Charlemagne's Empire existed in name alone. The agglomeration of essentially different races only served the purpose of emphasising the distinctions of blood and climate which were to be the eternal bars against unnatural union. But the residuum of separate nations was some time in making its appearance. Their various rulers would not accept the inevitable without a struggle; and in that struggle the only power that gained was the Church. France had no sooner thrown off the German yoke than she professed obedience to her great ecclesiastics.

In Neustria the only life and strength left after the Empire died was in the Church. For the land was but a waste of untilled soil, sparsely inhabited by serfs, and divided among the overlords, and of these latter the richest were the abbots and the bishops, round whose palaces and monasteries clustered the towns for their defence. But their temporal power was soon 45 destined to decay. The empire of the mind they might regain; their leadership of France was lost the instant that the Northmen's ships appeared upon the Seine.

When the serfs of Neustria first heard the ivory horns of the Vikings echoing along their river's banks, and saw the blood-red banner of the North against the sky, few men realised that the invaders were to weld them into the strongest Duchy of the West, and finally to make France herself arise as an independent nation out of Europe. They fled, these spiritless and defenceless villagers, to the nearest abbey's walls, they hid before the altars which held the relics of their saints, but neither relics nor sanctuary availed to save, as the monks of St.

These barbarians used the Christian rites merely to advance their own base purposes. Ever since Harold had won a province for a baptism each pirate chief in turn was the more eager to insist upon such lucrative religion. When they could not make capital out of "conversions" they took gold and provisions as the price of temporary peace.

By degrees they gave up going home in winter. The climate of these southern lands was tempting. In various parts of France along the river-mouths, just as they had taken the highway of the Humber into the heart of Britain, they made their scattered settlements, even as far inland as Chartres. But only one was destined to be permanent, and this was made by Rolf, Rollo, or Rou, in Rouen, the kernel of the Northern province. After him came Bjorn Ironside and Ragnar Lodbrog.

Twice they reached Paris, knocking at the gates to pass through towards the vineyards of Burgundy. In they made a kind of camp 46 upon an island between Oissel and Pont de l'Arche. There had been but little resistance to their advance. The fifty-three great expeditions of Charlemagne had used up the fighting men and scattered the bravest of the nobles over widely separated tracts of conquered territory. The Frenchmen had disappeared, either in war or by a voluntary submission to the lords under whose protection alone could they find safety.

No wonder that the chroniclers were obliged to account for the barrenness and weakness of the land by exaggerating the already certain slaughter at Fontenai The land was left uncultivated. Forests grew thicker between Seine and Loire. Wolves ravaged Aquitaine with none to hinder them. The South was still infested by the Saracens.

France seemed given up to wild beasts. Nor were the pirates unaided in their work of rapine. Necessarily few in number, for they came from far by sea, their ranks were recruited by every reckless freebooter in the country, who was quite ready to bow down to Thor and Odin, instead of to the shrines of his own land, which had proved so powerless to protect it. Fast on the heels of the first band of pirates came another, and another yet. Only by the strength of Theobald of Blois was the Loire closed against continual invasion, as the Seine was held by Rollo, who was to fix the true race of the Northmen for ever in the land.

He made his settlement in Neustria in exactly the same way as Guthrum thirty years before had taken possession of East Anglia. But while it was an easy task for the Danes to become Englishmen, it was a far 47 harder one for the invaders of the Seine to become so completely Frenchmen, as in fact they did. In the case of both Guthrum and Rollo, the invaded sovereign had been compelled to give up part of his lands to save the whole. Both the archbishop at Rouen and the "King" at Paris saw no other way out of their difficulties; and Rollo was as ready as Guthrum had been to go through the form of baptism and the farce of a submission, requiring as a pledge the daughter of the King, whose vassal or "man" he became.

The treaty in which Charles the Simple purchased peace was a close imitation of the Peace of Wedmore. These things became more serious to the pirate later on. But his way was at first made easy for him. At Rouen, Archbishop Franco, remembering perhaps the gloomy prophecies of Charlemagne, gave up his ruined and defenceless city without a blow. Rolf found indeed very little except the "crowd without arms" described by Dudo of St. Quentin in a town where hardly a stone wall had been left upright and the population had been ruthlessly decimated by his predecessors.

As Wace says of the expedition of Hastings the Dane:. Martin de la Roquette remained standing, 48 if, indeed, that is meant by the phrase, "Portae cui innexa est ecclesia Sancti Martini naves adhaesit," which may refer to the "Saint Morin" of Wace, or the "Portus morandi" I spoke of on page The town was still, it must be remembered, in its primitive watery condition, the chapels, not only of St. Martin, but of St. Eloi, were on islands that are now part of the firm soil of the river's bank.

The waters of the Robec itself formed one of the defences of the ruined city Rollo took. Just beyond the line of the old Gallo-Roman walls, rose the first rude monastery of St. Ouen; shrines were also consecrated to St. Vincent sur Rive; but most of the houses were still only of timber, and it was not till Rollo had closed up the wandering bed of the river between these shifting islands that the "Terres Neuves" were first formed that reached from the Rue Saint Denis to the Eau de Robec, through the Place de la Calende, down to the Rue de la Madeleine and the Rue aux Ours, and so to the Quai de la Bourse by way of the Rue des Cordeliers.

What is now merely No. Pierre du Chastel, and the name commemorates the spot where Rollo built his first square tower, the first of the many "Tours" that were built by the lords of Rouen, native and foreign, princes or pirates, from the river to the northern angle of the outer walls. Map B shows Rollo's castle and the three which followed it, one on each side beneath, and one above. It was in that Rollo thus marked the beginning of the Duchy of Normandy with the strong seal of his donjon-keep at Rouen, though he and his descendants for another century were still known only as the Pirates, and the Pirates' Duke.

In that year he was baptised by the Archbishop of Rouen, and received from the Karoling King all the lands from "the river of Epte to the sea, and westwards to Brittany," with the hand 49 of the Princess Gisela. Robert, Duke of the Franks, came back with him to Rouen to be his godfather, and for seven days the "King of the Sea" wore the white robes of innocence, and his followers eagerly joined him in the fold of Christianity, with results whose worldwide importance were only to be seen more than a century later.

For the present the wolves were quite ready to lie down with the lambs, but they kept their brutal dignity and coarse jests throughout all the solemn ceremonial. The pirate who was sent to do submission for the Duchy, embraced the royal foot so roughly that the King fell backwards off his throne, and in a roar of Norman laughter the Norman rule began that was to last for three centuries in France and spread from Palermo to the Tees.

The fable of this rudely-treated monarch reflects more than the anxiety of Norman chroniclers to hide the least appearance of submission; it suggests the fact of very actual weakness in these dying Karolings. Rollo's coming had decided for the French dynasty of Paris as against the Frankish dynasty of Laon. Both Karolings and Merovingians had been essentially of German stock. It was only late in the ninth century that Paris, the chief object of the Northerners' attack upon the Seine, arose as the national bulwark against the invader, and became a ducal city that was to be a royal.

Its Duke, Robert the Strong, the forefather of Capets, of Valois, and of Bourbons, had a son, Eudes or Odo , whose gallant repulse of the Pirates had given him a throne that was still held by his descendants a thousand years later, and he ruled in the French speech, while the Karolings of Laon still used the Teutonic idiom. When Laon was joined to Paris in by the election of Hugh, modern France really began with a French king ruling at Paris, and a German emperor as alien to the realm of the Capets as was his brother of Byzantium.

But there is still much to happen before 50 the date of can be safely reached, and the last ineffectual years of Charles the Simple gave Rollo every opportunity to strengthen his new possessions in security. The young blood, the adventurous spirit, the thirst for conquest, that his Scandinavian followers brought to Rouen, was destined to work wonders on its new soil.

For these pirates took the creed, the language and the manners of the French, and kept their own vigorous characteristics as mercenaries, plunderers, conquerors, crusaders. If in peace they invented nothing, they were quick to learn and adapt, generous to disseminate.

In Rouen itself they welcomed scholars, poets, theologians, and artists. Their Scandinavian vigour mated to the vivacity of Gaul was to produce a conquering race in Europe. At Bayeux, where a Saxon emigration had settled down long before the days of Rollo, the type of the original Norman can still be seen. The same type comes out in every famous Norman of to-day, in that "figure de coq," with its high nose and clever brow that marks the bold nature tempered with the cunning, the lawyer and the soldier mixed.

To these men Rollo gave land instead of booty. Of himself and his doings little accurate is known; but from the results of his rule his greatness can be fairly judged, for he held his sceptre like a battleaxe, and increased the bounds of his dominion. It was within his capital that his rule was chiefly beneficial. Here and there his Norman names have survived, as in Robec Redbeck Dieppedal Deepdale or Caudebec Coldbeck , but in the main he proved at once the high adaptability of his race.

His first assembly was of necessity aristocratic, and without ecclesiastics, for every landowner was Scandinavian, and the remnant of the aborigines were serfs whose revolts were pitilessly crushed. His laws were made then, and made to be respected, 51 and it is even said that the cry of "Haro! The tale of the golden bracelets he hung in the branches of his hunting forest by the Seine, which stayed three years without being stolen, is an indication of the rigour of the laws he made.

In about he died, and was the first layman to be buried in the cathedral he had improved: His son, William Longsword, succeeded to his Duchy, enlarged by the additions which Rollo had known how to secure during the strife between Laon and Paris that had been going on throughout his rule.

For Charles, with a simplicity worthy of his title, had apparently sent two gallants of his court to console his daughter Gisela for the roughness with which he heard her husband treated her, and these two were promptly hanged. But there was more material profit to be had out of the quarrels of the country, and though he lost Eu for a time, Rollo had been able to gain from the war by which he was surrounded in Maine, in Bessin, and in Brittany; which meant that his son came into possession of Caen, Cerisy, Falaise, and that Bayeux, which had been colonised from the North in the last days of the Roman Empire, and remained Teutonic long after Rouen had been "Parisianised," where you may still see all save the tongue of England, in men and animals, even in fields and hedges.

Michael's Mount to Cherbourg. Roman de Rou, v. It was at this time, too, that Prince Alan of Brittany fled for refuge to England, and the crushing of the Breton revolt resulted in the addition of the Channel Islands to the Duchy of Normandy, which remained British after John Lackland had lost the last of his continental possessions, retaining their local independence and ancient institutions under the protection of England; a far better thing for them than any enjoyment of the privileges, either of a French Department, or of a British county represented in Parliament like the ancient Norwegian Earldom of Orkney.

His courtiers found upon his body the silver key of the chest that guarded the monk's cowl he had always desired to wear. So upon a sixteenth of December in the year of the birth of Hugh Capet , the strengthless descendant of the Viking died and was buried in the Cathedral, and the Normans did homage to his young son Richard the Fearless who was fetched from his Saxon home at Bayeux and guarded by Bernard the Dane within the walls of Rouen.

But he enticed the boy to Laon and there imprisoned him until the faithful Osmond got him out concealed in a bundle of hay and bore him off on horseback to Coucy. Since , she is a founding member of the non-profit curatorial platform 1: Hans Schabus, Konstruktion des Himmels , View of the exhibition The Promise of Moving Things curator: Courtesy of the artist et ZERO….

Clemens von Wedemeyer makes experimental and short fiction films that combine different influences and modes of writing. During the film, the film critic and historian Mino Argentieri recounts, in a documentary-style voice-over, the uprising of thousands of extras who interrupted the filming of Ben Hur , a monument of cinema given the scale of its production. The procession was enacted by protestors who are currently occupying the Teatro Valle Occupato, the oldest theater in the Roman capital, which has become a symbol of cultural resistance following the withdrawal of public funding.

Simon Fravega works as artist and performer. He takes seriously the virtues of disguisement and anecdote. The nature of these gestures staggers them: Combining this deferred dubbing activity to a flow of micro-narratives, Simon Fravega weaves a reflection on the gap between facts and representations. And under the guise of humour and the absurd, it identifies something essential in the great game of the world. La nature de ces gestes chancelle alors: After his films were banned from distribution to Italian cinemas, he founded his own Azzurro Scipioni Cinema on Via degli Scipioni in Rome and the Cinema Paradiso in Brescia, both dedicated to screening independent and auteur films.

In the s, Agosti worked extensively on his own films. The former is a documentary about Fascist era architecture that Agosti made for the French-German television station Arte. It presents an overview of buildings in various Italian cities, organized by typology. The film shows how Fascist architecture always creates empty spaces where the human element is missing — space is thus understood as a void, and the void as an ideology.

The film is dedicated to Primo Levi. The main question is how these three manifestations of loving feelings relate to one another. At the end, the interviews come to a close as the film loops back to its beginning. The films will be shown on December 3 at the Filmclub Bolzano, Dr.

La parte finale non contiene interviste ma si ricollega al primo capito del film. Le proiezioni dei due film hanno luogo il 3 dicembre presso il Filmclub di Bolzano, Via Dr. The work of Tony Fiorentino is characterized by a continuous search for expression and experimentation through several materials and practices. Objects, thoughts and actions turn into compositions that display a narrative and poetic impact, by which he comments visually on our human condition with all our troubles as well as our social and existential issues.

In he won a scholarship that allowed him to attend the Anotati Skoli Kalon Tecknon in Athens for a year. He then moved to Amsterdam and London. He was invited to take part in several exhibitions in Italy and abroad, among which are: He currently lives and works in Milan. Tony Fiorentino nasce a Barletta nel Successivamente si trasferisce a Amsterdam e a Londra.

Vive e lavora a Milano. Having studied sculpture in Vienna, Josef Dabernig subsequently developed an artistic practice in a wide variety of media. Using conceptual tools, Dabernig investigates the ways in which knowledge and rationality are categorized through conventional forms and behavioral norms. He has copied entire books by hand in response to the discipline present during his years at boarding school, made lists, and built sculptures from found materials or according to mathematical rules.

His films favor a structured storyline and an open end, introducing systems of order where confusing and implausible parameters create discrepancies. The absent subject of his photographs, which represent empty spaces on the outskirts of large cities, nevertheless offers a sense of narrative and traces of economic and social change.

Dopo gli studi in scultura a Vienna, la pratica di Josef Dabernig si diffonde in diversi campi. Enrico Boccioletti is an artist and musician active under multiple names — Death in Plains, 4SICSX, spcnvdr and Enrico B — in the fields of post-conceptual, new vernacular, performance and sound, interested in incompleteness and circularity, duplication and accumulation, waste, layering, forgery, faux-real.

Antoine Nessi, Unknown Organs , Stainless steel, aluminium, brass, galvanized steel; variable dimensions. Lise Lacombe grew up in Aveyron south-west France. During her teenage years, she armed herself with an Olympus 0M30 that would ground her in stock photography. She left for the city Toulouse, where she graduated form art school and got a diploma in Photography-Photo manipulation from the Gobelins School in Paris. During these formative two years, she personified her photographic practice. Using first a Yashika Mat, then a Hasselblad, she stuck to the square format that characterizes her work and turned to photo-reporting.

Alone, she left for various countries: Jean-Baptiste Alazard was born in Aveyron to a family of farmers. The same year, he began working on trans-media works with Mittlewerk Express. Nel corso di questi due anni, personalizza la sua pratica fotografica. Con una Yashika Mat e poi una Hasselblad, si dedica al formato quadrato, caratteristico del suo lavoro, e si orienta al reportage.

Lo stesso anno, allarga il suo lavoro alle opere trans-media con Mittelwerk Express. Courtesy of the artist. She worked as a freelance curator specializing in projects for public spaces on behalf of various Italian and international institutions. She was a member of the jury for the She lives and works in Bolzano. The aim is to be interdisciplinary and these efforts can be seen in the fact that not only figurative art finds its place at Museion, but also architecture, music, performance, film and theatre all have a space in the yearly programme.

How do you articulate it? And, importantly, why is it still relevant to be interdisciplinary? Letizia Ragaglia The fact that visual arts cannot be perceived in isolation from other forms of art is not a new discovery. Reference to such statements can be found in ancient periods as well as in the present. However, I see contemporary art as a hybrid construction — in a positive sense — which not only connects different cultural disciplines, but also integrates disciplines that are far beyond the cultural field. In my opinion, therefore, a museum of contemporary art has to underline and to create different links that move through the present-day cultural scene.

This Fall, moreover, we will present a show, in which Carol Bove, an American artist, interacts with the well-known architect Carlo Scarpa: In our show When Now Is Minimal. The Unknown Side of the Sammlung Goetz we hosted concerts with minimal music and we also pursue collaborations with designers such as Martino Gamper, who continuously move between art and design. Regarding the importance of interdisciplinarity: There are different models of what a museum should be, of what its missions should be. What is your vision, in , of what a museum should be?

I can only answer for a museum of contemporary art, a museum which works predominantly with living artists and which, therefore, differs slightly from other museums that deal with artists and objects from the past. Is the traditional museum dead? I particularly appreciate a question asked by Nikolaus Hirsch: Who are the authors of Museion? Self-practices in Contemporary Art.

At the same time, the show gave us the chance to go through each different individual practice in our team, from the security guards in the exhibition rooms, to the accountant and the secretary. Who do you speak to? How would you describe the persons visiting Museion: In , the guest curator of Museion is Pierre Bal-Blanc.

Among the many inspirations I received from that show, I read between the lines that nowadays there is not one single public, but a number of different ones. I think that one should never underestimate his or her public! Furthermore, I have a dream: We want to be there for people who want to engage and have an experience. This involves delving much farther beyond our rationality. Michael Fliri, the unseen looks like something you have never seen, Once we heard about that, though, we were obviously enthusiastic about collaborating in a wider network.

I strongly believe in exchanges and collaboration with other institutions, especially if the partners share needs and mission-statements. As a guest curator, Pierre Bal-Blanc has done a lot of research on our territory and brought his perspective from outside in order to make us perceive our context in a different way. Nella nostra mostra When Now Is Minimal. Ci sono diversi modelli di cosa dovrebbe essere un museo e di quale debba esserne la mission.

Cosa pensi debba essere un museo nel ? Trovo molto interessante questa domanda formulata da Nikolaus Hirsch: Chi sono gli autori di Museion? Lo scorso anno, Museion ha invitato come guest curators Carol Yinghua Lu e Liu Ding, che hanno realizzato una mostra molto interessante, Little Movements. A chi ti rivolgi? Come descrivile persone che visitano Museion: Tra le molte ispirazioni che ho tratto da quella mostra, mi pare di aver letto tra le righe che oggi non esiste un unico pubblico, ma diversi.

Penso che non si debba mai sottovalutare il pubblico! E poi, ho un sogno: Credo fortemente nello scambio e nella collaborazione con altre istituzioni, specialmente se i partner hanno gli stessi bisogni e le stesse mission. Danh Vo, We the people. Exhibition Fabulous Muscles , Museion, Michael Fliri, the unseen looks like something you have never seen , , Collection Museion. Using collaborative strategies, she has produced performances, collages, sculptures, and installations that privilege themes of gender, identity, and memory.

In a patriarchal culture, her politically inspired work challenges the stereotypical construction of female identity and its substantial political role in history. The figure of Rosa Luxemburg, assassinated for her radical political position in , is a major inspiration for the artist. Inaugurated in Berlin in , the monument was destroyed by the Nazis in For the new version of the anti-Fascist memorial, the artist plans to gather the bricks needed to rebuild it with the help of international donations.

La statue devient Lady Rosa of Luxembourg , cette fois en gestation. She was discovered the following day, by a forester who returned her to her parents. In the wake of this event, Maric promised herself she would become an artist in order to act out her fantasies without anyone forcing her to reason. Since , she has developed a transdisciplinary practice in which she deconstructs the boundaries of different media, using the body as a sculptural weapon. For Soleil politique , she is presenting a video trailer in several episodes that associate certain elements from the exhibition with her own work.

These will be distributed on the Internet before and during the exhibition. For Soleil politique , Marianne Maric is presenting a video trailer in several episodes that associate certain elements from the exhibition with her own work. The idea sprang from a reflection on the limits of modern art history and the functioning of the market. The agency enabled anyone to become an artist: Venzano, an imaginary character invented by Philippe Thomas, has photographed and reviewed, building up a collection. Over 40 years, the collector systematically classified French museums, yet without applying any kind of aesthetic criteria or revealing anything about the collections inside them.

Michael Dean, hnnnhhnnn-hnnnhnnnnh Analogue Series , , book, ink, 16 x 23 x 9 cm. Courtesy the artist, Herald St. London, Supportico Lopez Berlin. Among his recent group exhibitions: The active mixtures that I make, bring together and confront, take on a form in precarious, unstable balancing acts. In order to bypass the functions and disorganize the know-how, we have to adopt a distant view in terms of what we know, or think we know, without ever falling into fascination, but instead with the intention of raising questions and inciting curiosity.

Freeing an object also means reprogramming it, or handling its side effects. Static objects are set in motion, while those that usually move tend towards petrified states. Some systems come undone, returning to a lost state. By making bridges between disciplines, and by combining or defragmenting fields and categories, it is possible to make one or more frameworks tremble, but without being able to extract ourselves from them completely. The point is then to re-examine and reinterpret the connections and ties that can join together the fragments and abolish the frontier between methods and materials.

The game consists in regulating this unruliness. Nato nel , vive e lavora a Nizza. Fra le sue mostre collettive recenti: In what sense was this collective dynamic important? The three of us already knew each other. We got along well and lived in more or less the same area. Each of us having been separately involved in several collaborations, we were aware that this presented an advantage in terms of energy, labour power and letting go.

Beyond the spirit of intellectual competition, one senses that this collective logic is also efficient when it comes to production. At the work-creation stage, a distinctive organisational logic can already be discerned… D. This is something that creeps into our practices and into those of quite a few artists of our generation. Primarily out of pure pragmatism: By inventing our tools, by making do with whatever we have at our disposal. What is the meaning of the title Jambe de botte? For the creation of this piece, you tested several types of material, ultimately choosing plastic from melted garden chairs.

Why did this material stand out? This brings us back to production circuits and pragmatism. How a combination of gestures can produce an image. We very empirically tested hundreds of combinations. Then we took a deckchair, burned it with a flamethrower, and the result was perfect. We work on the French Riviera, where the dumps are full of this kind of furniture.

We were conscious of reflecting the dystopian faults of this strange place that, when you remove the glamour of the sun and palm trees, smells of cheap suntan lotion, melted poodles and social violence. How were the forms of the different sculptures created? We aligned casts found in an abandoned train parts foundry, in such a way that we were able to create cylinders that could be spun like record players. We poured the plastic and suddenly we had Scud missiles.

Since sound is a vibration, in principle it can be inscribed on the media it comes into contact with. The forms of the various sculptures evoke something of a warlike world. Added to these forms is a sound that gives the space a stressful atmosphere. How is this sound produced? Then everything developed very spontaneously. The day before the exhibition opened, we had to make up our minds to bring the sculptures into the exhibition venue.

Although object and device diversion and DIY are found in your respective works, I get the impression that the question of sculpture is fairly new. We considered simple questions that are not at all historical. A plinth is practical. It keeps the work at a distance and prevents a Scud from falling on someone. Plastic is more solid than margarine, etc.

On en revient aux circuits de productions et au pragmatisme. Comment se son est-il produit? In his work, Santiago Sierra exposes the power structures underlying our everyday lives. Since the s, he has produced numerous projects based on reallife situations of exploitation and marginalization encountered in various parts of the world. His works are a critical revisitation of minimalism, combined with performance practices presented in the form of video, film, and photography.

In many cases, the artist pays those willing to take part in his projects, thus underlining the way in which the underprivileged are exploited in modern society. Dientes de los ultimos gitanos de Ponticelli Teeth of the last gipsies of Ponticelli , which was presented in on the occasion of a solo show at the MADRE Museum in Naples, entails both an action in the public space and one inside the museum. The project examines the situation in the working-class neighborhood of Ponticelli, east of Naples, where social tensions run high.

On the billboards in the area, the artist presented photographic enlargements of the clenched teeth of the last two families of Roma gypsies living in a local encampment before they, too, were evicted. This abstract rendering of a detail—in this case the teeth of those concerned—renders the individuals unrecognizable but exposes the Roma people to the public gaze, highlighting their presence in the area and their anger and despair at their impotence in the face of their plight.

Nel suo lavoro, Santiago Sierra denuncia le strutture di potere che operano nella vita di tutti i giorni. I suoi lavori consistono in una rivisitazione critica del minimalismo, cui sono associate pratiche performative restituite poi da video, film e fotografie. She works with artists from different generations and develops exhibition projects and publications on a national and international scale.

From to , she worked in Air de Paris gallery and conducted a prospective programme titled La Planck. She held the position of president of the association C-E-A French association of curators from to , and is still involved as a board member. Ha lavorato con artisti di varie generazioni e sviluppato progetti espositivi su scala nazionale e internazionale. Dal al ha lavorato alla galleria Air de Paris dove ha portato avanti un programma chiamato La Planck. Keren Detton Le Quartier was founded in on the initiative of the former director of the Quimper art school, Michel Pagnoux.

Its underpinnings were the intense competition in art, literature and film in Quimper and the implementation of the decentralisation policies initiated by Jack Lange in the mids. Le Quartier was set up in the same building as the art school but operated autonomously, enabling it to be part of a professional network to which students had special access. Subsequently, the implementation of a contract with the state, region and department guaranteed that it would be possible to work with the public in a sustained way, particularly through the assistance they provided for the production of works and for mediation activities.

Charles Esche described his ideal museum as fundamentally uncertain: The idea was to shake up the annual programme, introduce different rhythms, play on synchronic or diachronic effects, while preserving an artistic research space over the long term and continuing to do creative work with publications catalogues, anthologies of texts, artist books. I also wanted to work on the porosity between the inside and outside in order to shatter the military aspect of this former barracks and highlight the seeing conditions.

It was as if visitors were both surprised and relieved to see the works integrated into their day-to-day life. Recently, artist and architect Catherine Rannou offered a visit to the worksite of an exhibition setup tackling architecture through language and imagination, radically transforming the institution. I find it very stimulating when works speak to visitors on the level of their relationship to the body and to language.

Le Quartier will be celebrating its 25th anniversary in a shaken political, economic and media context. As we speak, Le Quartier is being threatened by drastic budget cuts, and yet its balance sheet has been unanimously praised by all of its public partners. It runs an untimely programme alongside artists, investigates our visual cultures through images and language, and merrily crosses the boundaries between disciplines.

Yet it is being told to justify its legitimacy. Le Quartier is in a prime position between the art school, to which it offers genuine professional springboards, and the fine art museum, with which it collaborates regularly. But above all it is a place of emerging forms and ideas, passions and questions. It is rooted in its territory and resonates with places elsewhere, and keeps up a dialogue with artists and visitors.

Why did you wish to participate and what programme are you proposing? Alfred Jarry Archipelago was born of the desire to understand artistic creation today through Alfred Jarry, the father of pataphysics.

Raiponce - Où est la vraie vie ?

The project has turned into an open curatorial platform, which apprehends the legacy of the author of Ubu Roi not historically but speculatively. Since he was a well-informed observer of the artists of his time, we decided to make way for Alfred Jarry the curator! Leonardo Bigazzi, curator at the Museo Marino Marini in Florence, is presenting a programme of performances. Eva Wittocx, curator at M — Museum and for the Playground Festival in Leuven Belgium is joining us by linking monographic exhibitions and performances. The project framework is open enough to incorporate different points of view on this subversive figure full of contrasts, and to more closely examine his relationship to theatre, his projection of bodies and desire, his use of codes and absurdity, and the mixing of genres and identities.

A publication in the form of an almanac will be the receptacle of this multiplicity of perspectives, with supplements provided by new contributors, authors and artists. Alfred Jarry Archipelago Space: She has been freelance curator between and Between and she has been a board member of d.

First in terms of its history, and then its architecture, and especially its location in a rural area. In your view, what are the strengths and weaknesses of this context? The weakness could be its isolation in a rural area within a village of residents, 35 km from the towns of Metz and Nancy.

But this isolation is relative: Delme is three hours by car from Brussels, Basel and Frankfurt, and Paris is only one-and-a-half hours from Metz or Nancy by train. This region of eastern France has strong connections with other art scenes in Belgium, Holland, Luxemburg, Germany, Switzerland and other countries. Making the trip to Delme and finding yourself in this landscape — with fields as far as the eye can see — is part of the experience you get from the visit.

It turns this visit into a special moment. As for the place itself, its history and architecture have a magnetic power. This historical depth is what makes it so complex and interesting. Unlike the white cube and its supposed neutrality, a place like the Synagogue de Delme conceals infinite resources and questions, and this is what makes it so fascinating.

Where does Delme sit in the context of the overall French art policy? In a context of fiscal austerity, culture is jeopardised. Delme is a very small cog in a very large chain of cultural institutions that are going through major upheavals in terms of cultural policy. In contexts like this, these ambitions should be supported all the more: The reality is more subtle and nuanced. Why did you want to participate and what programme are you proposing? Working collectively and as a network has always been an essential aspect of my way of conceiving my work as a curator and organisation director.

I very naturally wanted to take part in PIANO because this platform further develops this spirit of collaboration and networking. Moreover, the meeting with Peep-Hole in Milan was decisive. This question of books as places of experimentation and research was also explored at Peep-Hole this summer with the second instalment of their project The Book Society.

Selon vous, quelles sont les forces et les faiblesses de ce contexte? Mais cet isolement est relatif: The Book Society 02 Protagonists: Marie Cozette, Rometti Costales. She has directed Cneai since She is a member of several research labs, she also contributes to academic reviews like Multitudes and she lectures in art schools and universities.

Prepared Piano — Model for a New Institutionalism. Dirige il Cneai dal Sylvie Boulanger dirige le Cneai depuis Sylvie Boulanger The history of the place prepared the art centre to adopt the question of art as media. When the art centre was created in , the question was whether to make it a place for engraving, but three years of research and production with thirty or so artists including Claude Closky, Robert Morris and Peter Downsbrough, led us to consider engraving as an original form of publication.

A new generation of curators has recently formed, considering space made public as public space and the act of publishing as an artistic act. They adjust to current artistic crises: Alongside the exhibition, production and publishing programme, we have therefore created tools at the service of this scene: Other ideas are being finalised …. How can the first intent, that is its very essence be summed up? The subject is redefined every day according to artistic needs: And if publishing etymologically means to make public , it is recognised that the transmission, distribution and reception of art are three fundamental indices of the work of the Cneai.

It is also a place that we try to keep free from any institutional project , that is open to projects by art protagonists who invent a new function for a decompartmentalised art scene, emancipated from academic categories and therefore extended to sound, writing and performance… as well as collaborative fields. The Cneai is responsible for a collection comprising 11, pieces.

How does the collection initiate the programme, or even the structure of the site? This quote is new to me and I love it. The energy between the collection and the programme is prolific. That is exactly why we have had the Cneai redeveloped and expanded by Elisabeth Lemercier and Philippe Bona to enable this exchange of energy between the collection and the programme. In order to be able to offer a new programme model in the form of scenarios from several points of view where the exhibition registers and the presentation of the collections blend with the presentation of an isolated work or a publication.

We use pieces from the collection for their research potential, and we increase the collection according to the needs of the artists and guest curators. This double movement gives meaning to the establishment of the fund, likewise the programme. How do you situate the Floating House in this context? Surprisingly this architecture by the Bouroullec brothers was very badly received by certain local cultural players!

It seems that in small towns journalists, curators and other cultural producers, who are neither educated citizens nor informed consumers, confront us. The Floating House installation traumatised all those who were living on their island, because of their nostalgic for their status as curators from the time of the impressionists. The art centre and the Floating House are located sufficiently far from the town, from work, but relatively close to housing areas, a little isolated in nature, in the middle of a wooded island, between the two banks of the Seine and near to a park, with walkways and stopping places to eat, picnic and play.

The location gives a feeling of privacy and vacuity, a condition necessary for encountering art… The Floating House is both an extremely simple and intuitive to use residential property and an object for contemplation. Charles Esche described his ideal museum as fundamentally vague: How did you structure the curatorial approach to the place, to the institution?

Consequently it is more about creating a context than a place or a programme. The Cneai therefore proposes a new dynamic model: Currently, Christophe Lemaitre has been invited to share the art direction, for Yona Friedman it is a forum for experimentation, for three years Jef Geys has been an important partner to test the levels of values in art; - cooperative: We work on average with about a hundred partners every year; - cultural: Festivals and study days have replaced previews…. What is the role of a contemporary art centre director in ? To resolve a multitude of paradoxical equations: Why did you want to participate and what programme are you offering?

The first residency in the Floating House by Daniele Balit, Maria Alicata and Adrienne Drake, three Italian curators, fired up passionate discussions about the question of version. We have identified works from the collection that have been considered in reference to other older works, whether from the visual arts, musical, cinematic or any other domain.

Now it is a question of inviting these artists to develop or activate their old projects version 3 here and now, at the MACRO and at the Cneai, during two exhibitions that will take place in October in Rome and in autumn at the Cneai. The project is largely research carried out within two archives, one Italian 1: Our project will attempt to provide concrete answers to questions about formal frontiers objects, performances, images ; about cultural borders literary, musical, film, scientific, design… ; about derived artistic processes curatorial, editorial, collection and research ; and about hybridization of the figures artists, editors, curators, collectors, sellers or researchers.

Comment la collection informe le programme, voire la structure du lieu? Je ne connaissais pas cette citation, elle me ravit. Comment situez-vous la Maison Flottante dans ce contexte? Nous travaillons en moyenne avec une centaine de partenaires tous les ans ; - culturel: Jef Geys, Coloring book for adults , Exhibition J ef Geys. In his work, Marcus Geiger often uses domestic materials and painstaking processes that provoke ironic ruptures between the conceptual precision with which they are treated and the stereotypical image of a comfortable interior that they convey.

He explores and demystifies the meaning of the artwork as a concept, disrupting the ways in which the art market attributes value. In , for example, he repainted the Vienna Secession red, thus transforming an architectural monument into a pictorial medium. The artist deployed the same concepts in his project for Erste Campus, the future home of the Erste Bank in Vienna.

In the context of Raumwahrnehmung Perception of Space , a call for art projects to accompany the conversion of an abandoned brewery in Vienna into a housing complex, Geiger submitted Sozial Radikal Minimal Kapital , a minimalist proposal with decisive material and symbolic import. He removed one of the planned apartments, thus leaving a gaping hole in both sides of the building, left in unfinished state and abandoned to birds and weeds. Geiger thus responded in a critical way to the project brief, which raises questions concerning the current integration of art and architecture in the context of social housing and its economic conditions: His project thus confronted the desire for clarity, openness, and transparency in the modernist project.

During the exhibition, this was made all the more apparent as the surfaces became dirty and worn. The project thus reflected on the sanitizing dictates of museum conservation, which, as such, isolate the work from its host environment. Paradoxically, his intervention criticized the ideology of conservation at the same time as it prevented the project from leaving its trace or interfering with the building itself. Gli stessi principi torneranno nel suo progetto per Erste Campus, futura sede di una banca eponima a Vienna. Questo atto contiene anche una denuncia economica concreta: His academic research was focused on American landscape documentary photography.

As an art critic, he has been a regular contributor to French magazine 02 among others. From to , he coordinated Fieldwork Marfa, an international research-in-residency program in Marfa, Texas. Marfa negli Stati Uniti. Etienne Bernard As a centre for contemporary art, the core function of Passerelle is to support artists notably in the realm of production, exhibition and publication and the public in their discovery of what the artists have to offer.

On the contrary, I think that a centre for contemporary art is a place for shared elaboration of meaning in which artists and the public meet and discuss. In order to reflect reality it must occur naturally in my view. It is based on a mutual desire between local audiences and artists, the majority of which have come a long way, to take the time to discuss ideas. We must not forget that we are in Brest, at the far reaches of Brittany, at the heart of an area that is very rich in cultural proposals but also peripheral to the main thrust of the art circuit.

I am convinced that its social as well as geographical position presents an opportunity rather than a pitfall. Indeed, Brest is not on the beaten track, so it is up to us to make it a destination. We therefore have the necessary resources in place to welcome and provide hospitality for operational artists and we systematically offer them an opportunity to enjoy a work temporality that they will not necessarily find anywhere else.

Artists can thus work in peace, with the help of technicians, and the public is invited in to exchange views on art in the making. Art centres are thus used as a living, lived-in and open space. And so far, I am delighted to observe that the system works. In addition, we have noticed that the public reacts well to the freedom to converse directly with the artist.

As the development of an artistic project progresses, people observe, come back and talk. In my view this positive perspective reflects our institutional action supporting creation that the public is sometimes oblivious to. It is more than just a mission. I would say that opening up the space to forms of creation that fall outside the strict field of contemporary art is rather an assertive approach to the programme in line with the history of the place. The collective that opened the venue welcomed music, dance and theatre as well as art.

Subsequently, the field of research was progressively oriented more clearly towards contemporary art as the structure became more institutionalized. When I became director of the art centre, I wanted to reconnect with this historic initiative for two main reasons. The first is that I think an ambitious project can be constructed on this wealth of history with the professional facilities provided by Passerelle. Thanks to the tremendous task of structuring and the professional development undertaken by the previous director Ulrike Kremeier, the art centre evidently no longer resembles its initial association gathering amateurs, but has now become an operable infrastructure able to accommodate artistic proposals from all walks of life.

The second is that Brest is a fantastic pool of top quality partners who in their respective disciplinary fields share our high standards. What is your view of the public and what type of relationship do you wish to enjoy with this public? In an area like Brittany and Brest, the public is not an abstract entity. The centre for contemporary art constitutes both a tool at the service of the local public the facilities provided by Passerelle are at the heart of a clearly identified district and aimed at a national and international public professionals of course, but also seasonal holidaymakers.

Thus, our actions and operations must appeal to all without ranking or pandering. We know our different audiences well, their specificities, their desires as well as their reticence, but I think that everyone can identify, in their own way, to an artistic proposal that when sound can be approached from different perspectives.

What are the tools and programmes that structure the art centre and strike a chord with its public? For example, what are the Augmentation Zones and how do they integrate with your vision of the public? We offer a large number of programmes aimed at the public from hands-on workshops with the youngest, to series of lectures or guided visits. A year ago we also implemented a specific section that I called Augmentation Zones. The notion of augmentation is defined here in the digital meaning of the term. On the Internet, augmented reality is the sum of data, links and references that complement a subject.

They are also accessible on the Internet with a digital space for content accompanying the exhibitions. Passerelle proposes monographic exhibitions as well as group exhibitions and attempts to articulate different disciplines. More specifically, how do you view the mission and the responsibilities of an art centre director in ?

I chose to take over as director of a contemporary art centre as I am passionate about linking a critical and curatorial approach with a regional context. Indeed, the global logic that governs the world of art that we work in finds, in my opinion, its meaning and opportunities for development in specific situations from which concrete proposals emerge.

I find my role as producer stimulating, that is as an art critic who gathers the intellectual, material and human resources to generate artistic proposals in an identified geographical, social and political situation, to work in the permanent and constructive coming and going between local and global. Why did you want to participate and what programme did you propose? I think that PIANO is an excellent example of structuring collaboration and sharing means of production and communication. In the context of the concerning budget and institutional crisis at large in France, Italy and elsewhere, it is essential to completely rethink methods for funding and bringing projects to fruition.

And beyond the simple financial consideration, it is now no longer pertinent to plan a project with an artist in a single venue. Il se construit des habitudes. Quelle est votre conception du public et quels rapport souhaitez vous entretenir avec ce public? Nous proposons un grand nombre de programmes en direction des publics. Je pense que PIANO est un excellent exemple de structuration dans la collaboration et la mutualisation des moyens de production et de communication. Talking city , She aims to create a dialogue between contemporary art and other art forms with a particular emphasis on theatre and dance , as well as social science economics, philosophy, anthropology , focusing on the significance of processes and experimentation in the performative dimension of art.

Julie Pellegrin Located on an exceptional site in the outer suburbs of Paris, La Ferme du Buisson is a multidisciplinary cultural centre of national and international standing. It comprises a contemporary art centre, a national theatre containing 7 concert and performance spaces, and a cinema. This configuration, which is unique in France, makes the place a perfect example of the de-compartmentalisation of disciplines. So the programme revolves around three axes: In our ways of working, in the subjects explored or in our activities directed at the public, we try never to disconnect the art scene from the social, political and cultural spheres.

Beyond its art production and distribution mission, how do you define the political and civic role played by La Ferme du Buisson? Although our role within the city can sometimes seem trifling, the current context is making it absolutely indispensable. In support of this, La Ferme du Buisson is doing great mediation and awareness-raising work directed at visitors from the every walk of life.

In this period when people are turning inward, international collaborations that make it possible to exchange points of view, practices and sometimes funding, are vitally important. In this sense, the cooperative projects developed by d. Since Jarry had very close links with the futurists, and Italy is home to many pataphysics societies, and Ubu regularly serves as a metaphor for illustrious Italian politicians, we asked Alberto Salvadori and Leonardo Bigazzi to join in our research.

This project takes the form of an archipelago in which each island-chapter unfolds in a different place and in a different form. The renowned Italian designer Achille Castiglioni spent his life conceiving and testing industrial products, working with his brothers Pier Giacomo and Livio. Famous for the irony that characterised his creations, his designs are always tinged with a subtle parody of the avant-garde, expressing the disillusionment of the generation that grew up after the provocations of futurism and the utopia of rationalism. The project consisted of two square, parallel blocks connected by a horizontal slab, and the accompanying model was made out of two slices of cheese cut perfectly to scale.

The entire project was presented in minute detail, with plans showing floor layouts, cross-sections and pediments. Critics view this project as containing the seeds of the themes that would go on to underpin his entire oeuvre, including the use of ready-mades, and more importantly, references to Italian futurism: Boccioni, for example, also employed a variety of materials, including foodstuffs, in his artistic compositions.

Achille Castiglioni, noto designer italiano, si dedica insieme ai fratelli Pier Giacomo e Livio alla progettazione e sperimentazione di prodotti industriali. Esprime in questo modo la disillusione di una generazione cresciuta dopo le provocazioni del futurismo e le utopie del razionalismo. La trama del formaggio ricorda quella del travertino, materiale caro alle architetture realizzate sotto il Regime.

La critica ha visto in questo progetto un primo riferimento a elementi caratteristici della successiva ricerca di Achille Castiglioni: Emilie Parendeau reinterprets the works of other artists, with the intention of updating them, according to their terms of appearance, more than to introduce in them its own concerns. By supporting the process that accompanies their materialization, she introduces variations that are intended to make these active works in the present.

In his exploration of collective experiences of history, above all in Eastern Europe, story-telling is both the subject of his work and his modus operandi. The title of the work references the reversal of the situation: Shooting a work of art is a way of remembering the human drama that accompanied the transformation of society and aesthetics in the Soviet Union of that era.

This work hence commemorates a historic event without producing a traditional monument. Il design di Lissitzky era espressione della rivoluzione estetica sovietica, del dominio della classe operaia e contadina su quella borghese.

Go With God.
Les femmes de l'ombre.
The Story of Rouen , Sir Theodore Andrea Cook.
Si vous souhaitez signer la pétition pour Roman Polanski!
Joseph Andrews — Wikipédia.
Philosophie, politique, actualité, littérature, arts;
Free Country: A Penniless Adventure the Length of Britain.

For the work Soleil politique Political Sun , from which the exhibition borrows its title, Broodthaers took a black-and-white illustration from an encyclopedia depicting the comparative scale of the planets in the solar system. The work also reveals the ideological role of the museum, oscillating between enlightenment and obscurantism. Allo stesso tempo, oscillando tra illuminismo e oscurantismo, vi si trova esposto il ruolo ideologico del museo. Vient ensuite le point final: Marcel Broodthaers, Soleil Politique , , print and collage on paper and ink, 25,5 x 35,5 cm. Copyright Estate Marcel Broodthaers.

Daniele Balit is a curator, theoretician and art historian living in Paris. He holds a PhD in Contemporary Art History from the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, in which he has investigated the impact of sound-based practices on exhibition contexts. She is a founding member of the non-profit curatorial platform 1: Nel marzo ha dato avvio a Birdcage, galleria sonora itinerante e site specific. Il est membre fondateur de la plateforme curatoriale 1: We quickly identified the archive as our research thread, starting from what seemed to us quite a strong paradox inherent to the practice of archiving ephemera as the CNEAI is doing: A bit like collecting butterflies!

In a way, all archives are ephemeral. The stories they preserve are there to be rewritten each time, to be brought to a new life on the occasion of each new display. Gradually, our research took the form of a historical perspective on some individuals, institutions and groups, who share similar preoccupations and who are trying to articulate them — or should we say, with Seth Price, to disperse them — through a variety of media.

How did you work all together? This was the occasion to approach and study the archive both individually and as a group. Each of us initially focused on our own personal curatorial interests and research, but at this stage we shared a common discussion on artists and their practices, which led to the identification of authorship as a crucial topic for the project. Gradually, we defined the group of artists we wanted to include in the first show in Rome, which was a selection of predominantly French artists. In reality, it was quite immediate not only for their works, but also because it was an opportunity to show historical artists such as Pascal Doury and Michel Journiac, who are not well known in Italy.

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We also included Italian artist Maurizio Nannucci and Jonathan Monk, whose practice is based on collaboration and appropriation. What are the continuity and the main differences between Rome and Chatou exhibitions? It was important, therefore, that each exhibition had a distinct title, but that were still directly connected in order to create continuity from one show to the next. This is of course true for any archive, the issues of access and display being at the center of its operations.

But in the case of the FMRA archive, the whole idea of collecting editions and ephemera is really centered on exploring the possibilities of circulation and transmission of this specific type of art object. We were confronted with this very interesting dialectic between the fetishism of the collector impulsive collecting, accumulation and preservation of ephemera… and the endeavor of distributing it, which often implicates the questioning of the aura of the art object itself.

With the exhibitions we wanted to emphasize such types of dualities. This was done by involving some figures for which archiving, collecting, re-framing, displaying, editing or distributing is at the core of their practice, and who contribute with their hybrid activities to the critical thinking and redefinition of the field. In other words, we wanted to share with these artists and their productions the processes of activating the archive.

That was for us the most coherent way to present the FMRA collection, and also a response to some of the lines of research that emerged through the material itself. Red Swan Hotel Space: Previous projects include a. Among his edited publications: Progetti precedenti includono, tra gli altri: Ha editato le seguenti pubblicazioni: They are the product of relationships between many agents — artist s , curator s , artwork s , audience s , display, etc.

An exhibition is a designed situation, still open to a lot of various uncontrollable factors, time being the first of those; so I am interested in practices that are aware of how this time can be administered and shared among all those who are part of the exhibition, primarily the audience. Nikolaus Hirsch asked this question: Various people, mainly from the field of art and architecture, curated and organized exhibitions and activities of different kinds with a quite intense rhythm up to twelve exhibitions a year. And I am doing this by inviting artists, designers, choreographers, theorists, etc.

The mission of your institution is to produce and present regional, national and international artistic practices and to conduct critical research on the role of art and its relationship with the social and political sphere within which it operates.