Transitioners

Visual Arts

Exhibitions

— Société Réaliste

22.06 — 22.10.07

Galeria Zé dos Bois

ZDB presented the exhibition Transitioners by Société Réaliste, an artistic cooperative created in Paris in 2004 by Ferenc Gróf and Jean-Baptiste Naudy. Transitioners is a trend office specializing in political transitions, created by Société Réaliste. Transposing the principles of prospective design, generally used by trend research agencies, to the field of politics, Société Réaliste questions the concept of revolution as a central category in contemporary Western society. It examines its changes as a form: How can a “democratic transition” be produced? What is the role of design in the permanent conversion of politics into mythology? How can the effect of an event on people be transformed into controlled affect?
Within the scope of this exhibition, ZDB and Société Réaliste presented a cycle of conferences and
debates entitled Discussions on politics and design with Eric Alliez, Vicken Cheterian, Cosmin Costinas, José Neves, Société Realiste and Olivier Schefer.

Société Réaliste

Société Réaliste is an art collective founded by Ferenc Grof (1972) and Jean-Baptiste Naudy (1982).

Their work consists in appropriating and distorting the tools of communication of power structures (maps, emblems, signs, architecturs). Société Réaliste creates symbolic and visual confrontations to critically examine such structures without resorting to easy denunciations.

They operate in subtle comparisons, extrapolations, and statistic interpretations, shedding light on historical evolutions and trends and producing tools for reading the contemporary world.

Société Réaliste’s work has been shown in a number of exhibitions in France, at the Biennale de Lyon in 2009, at the Jeu de Paume (their solo show “Empire, State, Building”) in 2011, and at the Fondation Kadist, but also in numerous exhibits abroad, at Budapest’s Ludwig Museum in 2012, at the Contemporary Art Museum of Bucarest in 2011, at the Wroclaw Contemporary Museum in 2012, at the Dunaujvaros Institute of Contemporary Art in 2012, the Sheila C. Johnson Desing Center in New York in 2012, at the Leon MUSAC in 2012, at the TOP Contemporary Art Center in Shanghai in 2011, at the University of Maryland Baltimore Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture, at the Fondazione Pistoletto in Biella in 2010, and others. Recently, several exhibitions were dedicated to their work : Tender Pixels (London), P! (New York), Salon de Vortex (Athens) and Tranzit.ro (Cluj). During the 2013 edition of the FIAC, along with their solo booth, they presented the monumental work U.N. Camouflage, comprising 193 flags on the Passerelle de Solferino, Paris.

22.06 — 22.10.07

Galeria Zé dos Bois