From The Valley To School: Towards a New Symbiosis Between Creating, Cultivating and Learning

It is not easy to capture the essence of Fabrice Hyber’s latest exhibition at the Fondation Cartier in Paris in a few words, let alone his whole practice and oeuvre. When asked to make a self-portrait in 1991, the artist had concluded that representing himself would have been like trying to hold a bar of soap which keeps slipping away. Starting from this idea, he realized the biggest bar of soap in the world, exhibiting 20 tons of soap at the Biennale de Lyon. When interviewing the artist, one must thus move away from strict categorizations and pre-conceived paths, and instead see where the “slippery” bar of soap will lead us.  

On March 8th, 2023, Sciences Po welcomed the artist Fabrice Hyber and curator Jeanne Barral at its Paris campus on the occasion of the cycle of “Masterclasses Culture” organized by the School of Public Affairs. Starting from the exhibition “La Vallée – The Valley” at the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, the students of the Culture / Cultural Policy & Management stream prepared a series of questions tackling a broad range of topics, from the long-lasting relationship between man and nature, to the more recent dynamics between artist and curator.

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As a prolific and multidisciplinary artist, Fabrice Hyber has been multiplying his works and artistic projects since the 1980s. We may recall his famous Le Mètre Carré de rouge à lèvres (1981), his installation Eau d'or, eau dort, ODOR, for the Venice Biennale in 1997 or his POFs (Prototypes d'Objets en Fonctionnement). At the same time, since his first sales, Fabrice Hyber has been planning to buy pieces of land from his parents' family farm in order to plant a forest. In the 1990s, using a technique of swarming in 30 to 40 cm furrows, he planted La Vallée, a forest of more than 100 hectares which is today located in the Vendée. 

Running from December 8th, 2022 to April 30th, 2023, the exhibition "The Valley" bears witness both to Hyber's artistic work and to his meeting and exchanges with Jeanne Barral, curator of the exhibition. On top of her successful and international career, from Palazzo Grassi in Venice to the Anglim Gallery in San Francisco, Barral joined the curatorial team of the Fondation Cartier in 2022. Together with Hyber, they worked on the presentation of 70 works in the Fondation Cartier, 20 of which were specifically created for the exhibition. Like a school, the Fondation was transformed to accommodate school chairs and tables. The paintings like blackboards become intercessors between the public and the various themes addressed by the artist during the exhibition. 

The Valley - exhibition as well as the forest - are places of convergence: places propitious to connections and exchanges, just as the school should be. Indeed, both Barral and Hyber like to think that "all exhibitions should be schools, that all paintings should be blackboards. "The Valley" is constructed as a "joyful pedagogy": it reminds us of school but in a different way, in a manner that amuses and provokes questioning and creativity. This is why the exhibition works closely with 15 "classes in residency" from Paris, Vincennes and the Vendée region. Within the exhibition, these classes experiment with a different way of learning through the works on display. Hyber and Barral have worked with teachers and educational guides to create a lexicon that covers 40 themes linked to Hyber's paintings. It is also the debate and exchange that can enable this new pedagogy, as in the conversations that punctuated the exhibition: "Les Voix de la Vallée" invited two people each week to engage in a conversation without a journalist, in which it was the works that were the real mediators. In fact, Hyber did not rule out the possibility that one day the museum would be the real school.

Like the exhibition, the Masterclass unraveled through a continuous exchange between Hyber and Barral, between artist and curator. The creative and intellectual relationship between the two, fruit of months of collaboration, brings to light new perspectives on the role of the curator in the conception and production of an exhibition. As Hyber explains, he doesn’t like the word curator, or “commissaire d’exposition”, together with the conceptual charge attached to it since the 1960s. Rather, he deems the term “producer” (producteur or délégué) to be more representative of Barral’s role. In the preparation of “The Valley” exhibition, the usual dynamic was in fact inverted, since it was the artist who came up with a project, and thus needed a “producer” to realize it. On her side, Barral remarks that it is not always easy being a producer, as you have to adapt to the needs of each artist, while often adopting a more pragmatic approach. The exhibition, made out of all its different aspects, is therefore the result of complex negotiations and last-minute changes, determined for instance by budgetary or logistical constraints. Ultimately, these compromises are turned into enriching opportunities that can bring unexpected turns to the final conception of the show, from its scenography to the mediation. 

Barral and Hyber are not afraid to speak about the more practical and material aspects of the creative process, shedding light on themes and concerns that are often ignored, or thought of as antithetic to creativity. On the contrary, Hyber claims that “business is part of something that people should not hesitate to make beautiful”. With this in mind, he created Unlimited Responsibility (UR) in 1994, to promote and facilitate the production and exchange of projects between artists and companies. Thanks to this partnership, artists can enjoy more freedom, as they are helped to overcome the financial and material constraints between the conception and the actual production of an artwork. Commenting on the often precarious condition of artists, Barral adds that it is difficult for them to speak as a group and bring about their needs for they are not unionized. While steps forward have been made since the past decades, when artists were not remunerated for their exhibitions, there is still the need for improvements in policy making regarding the artists’ rights. 

Now more than ever, art can and should receive its fair recognition for the role it plays in promoting new understandings, as well as transformations, of the complex times we are living in. Recalling Hyber’s words, “art can help show that science and research go together with society”. Artists can thus break down the walls of the so-called “white cube” institution to engage with different disciplines and practices, so as to show us all the possibilities to transform. Within this fast-changing world, crashed under the pressure of the climate and ecological crises, it is necessary to find new ways to adapt. But Hyber and Barral are optimistic, as they believe in the potential of art to enlighten new ways forward. 

From our exchange with Hyber and Barral, a seed has been sown. It testifies to our understanding of the world and of art as a never-ending process.  

Article written by Fanny Bousquet & Alessandra Marchesi, students of the Culture/Cultural Policy and Management stream.

learn more

• The Cultural Policy and Management stream at the School of Public Affairs (English track)
• The Culture stream at the School of Public Affairs (French track)