To make this book, 21 writers and writers co-operatives were asked to produce, through autonomous sections, new forms of critical commentaries, using the text and the image, about the 21 themes that make up the categories of actions of an art center : Ile-de-France, place, island, colour, art history, visitor, reproduction, artist book, inventory, vocabulary, context, production, opinion, partner, exhibition, engraving, media plan, administration, figure.

A common corpus, "the first nine years of the Cneai", is an alibi for the authors to experiment new forms of artistic commentaries. The contributions can be read section by section, the texts and portfolios are autonomous and linked by the themes of the titles. Because testimonies are important, we revive here the basic principles of the commentary : 1) has just commented on, liying at the 14th century 2) addition, explanation given to a topic 3) usually spiteful interpretation : gossiping, tattling…

At a time when the meta-thought and the method-thought were producing a codified commentary, it was urgent to move around an artistic area that favours individuation at the expense of the marketing, and to spot the living expressions forms, the direct productions, that merge the amateur thought with the professional thought. Artists and poets are here to guide us. A hundred artists, authors, graphic artists, research workers contributed to the creation of this book, which is made of as many rubrics as isolated themes drawn from the daily life of an art centre.

In order to bring those authors statements among the most specialized ones in each pratical category (photography, drawing, art text…), the following people were invited : Jean-Baptiste Bruant and Maria Spangaro, Bureau d'études, Erwan and Ronan Bouroullec, Julien Carreyn, Continuous Project, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Bettina Funcke, Liam Gillick, Christophe Kihm, Körner Union, Pierre Leguillon, Jean-Charles Massera, Alexandra Midal, Charles Pennequin, Claude Rutault, Josh Smith, Anne Tronche… Each section presents an original production text/image, excepted the text by Gilles Deleuze Causes et raisons des îles désertes. A last rubric dedicated to the artists biographies gathers the contributions of 80 artists of the 200 ones who carried on their researches at the Cneai.

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