Launched as a platform at the Centre Pompidou in 2016, Cosmopolis focuses on research-based, collaborative and interdisciplinary contemporary art practices. Through residencies, exhibitions, discursive programs and publications, it engages with artists who are concerned with the production of relationships and the exchange of knowledge, participating in a resurgence of interest in cosmopolitical approaches. Following 'Cosmopolis #1: Collective Intelligence', presented in 2017 in Paris, focused on new forms of artistic collaboration, 'Cosmopolis #1.5: Enlarged Intelligence', presented in 2018 in Chengdu, China saw artists envisioning how to draw on artificial and ecological intelligence towards collectively defined ends.
The reorientation of technological means, along with questions of scale and of social value, are at the core of 'Cosmopolis #2: rethinking the human'. In today’s discussion of the post-human and of technological singularity, artists remind us that most humans have been excluded from ‘universal’ formulations of the idea of Humanity. The European Renaissance fashioned ‘Man’ to the exclusion of women and non-Christians, the latter increasingly defined through the invented paradigm of ‘lesser races’. By the 18th century, these formulations of humanity were integral to a ‘civilizing’ ideology that linked the idea of ‘progress’ to technology’s capacity to improve living conditions. European conceptions of the human were promoted within régimes of expropriation of resources, labour and reproductive capability. This project of modernity, presented with the teleological force of the inevitable, is today brought into question as one among the many possible histories of the evolution of society and technology.
Cosmopolis #2 presents constellations of works around technological diversity, relationships between place and scale and the affirmation of alternative ontologies. Through artistic inquiries into how small-scale and differently articulated and networked social formations can generate other models and value systems, the project pays fine attention to process and social rhythm. Artists and cultural producers develop generative spaces to work against the prevailing planetary system’s mainstream, experimenting with alternative futures beyond neoliberal individualism. Cosmopolis #2 connects these questions to artistic explorations of the entanglement of the human and the non-human.
Kathryn Weir
Director and Chief Curator
Cosmopolis
Ilaria Conti
Associate Curator
Cosmopolis
With associated curators
Charlène Dinhut
Zhang Hanlu
Press officer
Timothée Nicot
timothee.nicot@centrepompidou.fr
+33 (0)1 44 78 45 79
The Cosmopolis platform has been developed with the exclusive support of
The endowment fund [N.A!] Project was born from the will of Bertrand Jacoberger, President of the food group Solinest and creator of the reponsible healthy snack brand Nature Addicts. Since 2012, [N.A!] Project (formerly [N.A!] Fund) has supported some artists' projects around nature and climate change. The supported works were exhibited at the Cartier Foundation, documenta 13 and 14, the Shanghai Biennale, and the Kunst Institute in Basel. Without fixed locations, year-round projects with partner institutions encourage artists and researchers to share ideas and local experiences.
With the additional support of
Amalia Amoedo / Ambassade de France en Argentine / Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York / Claude Albritton III / Carolina Alvarez-Mathies avec Ceres Estates et Ron Cihuatán / ARTIVIVE / Arts Tasmania / Australia Council for the Arts / Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris / Columbia Global Centers | Paris / Conseil des arts du Canada / Diálogo Franco Argentino / Erasmus + Programme, European Union / Galerie Felix Frachon / Galerie Ernst Hilger, Vienne / GALLERIA CONTINUA, San Gimignano – Beijing – Les Moulins – Habana / Hugo Quinto et Juan Pablo Lojo / Institut Français Argentine / Steve Kinder / Liliana Bloch Gallery, Dallas / Mao Jihong Arts Foundation / Ministère de la Culture de Taiwan (ROC) / NG Art Gallery, Panama / Emma T. / Ville de Parramatta / White Space, Beijing / SCAI The Bathhouse, Tokyo