News

On 17 May 2022, the Kultur | lx Visual Arts selection committee met to assess applications for the Portfolio Grant. The selection committee unanimously selected De papillons de nuit et de l’échelle de Muybridge, a proposal by Yann Annicchiarico that will be published in September 2022. Congratulations to the winner!

Biography
Yann Annicchiarico’s (1983, Luxembourg) work has been shown in individual exhibitions at Kunst im Tunnel (KIT) in Düsseldorf (2020), Nosbaum Reding Projects in Luxembourg (2019) and at the Centre des Arts Pluriels in Ettelbruck (2018). His work has also been included in joint exhibitions at the Mudam – The Contemporary Art Museum of Luxembourg (MUDAM) in Luxembourg (2021) and the Archaeological Museum of Sienese Chianti in Italy (2019). Since 2011, he has been a research artist with Contemporary Art and Temporalities of History (ACTH), in partnership with Lyon Ecole des Beaux-Arts (ENSBA). He has completed residencies at Fonderie Darling in Montreal (2019) and the Académie de France Villa Médicis in Rome (2015). In 2020, Annicchiarico received a Francis-André grant for his first monographic exhibition in a public institution at Kunst im Tunnel (KIT) in Düsseldorf. His work was selected for the New Positions programme at Cologne Art in 2019. He lives and works in Luxembourg.

Overview of work
“Yann Annicchiarico’s work calls on our senses and brings our human nature face to face with elusive worlds. The act of seeing—a sense that is inseparable from our bodies, whether they are stationary or moving to explore a space—is the medium Annicchiarico uses to create awareness of the limits to our understanding and to surpass them. The shift from that which we can understand to that which we sense happens when we grasp the impenetrability of dimensions with which we are unfamiliar, yet encounter nonetheless. Annicchiarico’s space-related works interact with their environment and create overlaps across time, offering a physical experience of the sensation of being on a threshold, of finding oneself ‘in between’. His art, however, also allows for chance; there is space for improvisation and the accidental. In Entre géométrie, noir de fumée et papillons de nuit (2014), the insect, an unexpected visitor, became part of a miniature constellation the artist had created using smoke from a candle to blacken the sides of a glass dodecahedron. The moth left its mark in the soot as it passed through. When he noticed the traces the next morning, instead of removing all sign of this external presence, the artist decided to preserve it by placing white streaks on the black background to record the presence of another species’ realm. Ever since, the moth has been a regular feature of the artist’s practice. For Annicchiarico, it is “an agent that activates the space between two worlds.” ” Clément Minighetti

Grant Project
De papillons de nuit et de l’échelle de Muybridge is part of a body of work by the ACTH research group at Lyon Ecole des Beaux-Arts (ENSBA) due to be published by Presses du Réel. It is a continuation of the artist’s practice, that has developed over more than ten years, starting with a Masters in Plastic Arts (DNSEP) in 2010, followed by a course of research allowing the artist to develop his practice at his own pace and obtain a Doctorate (DSRA) in 2021.

De papillons de nuit et de l’échelle de Muybridge brings together the artist’s recent work. It creates a coherent collection based on an approach that is identifiable with the artist and which integrated the art world through monographic and collective art projects. This publication presents the key stages in the artist’s development and also contains interviews connected with the exhibitions. References to art and theory are discussed through conversations, while unique perspectives on the work are provided through texts commissioned for the exhibitions. The original French edition has been translated into English to reach a wider audience. Careful attention has been given to the full-page colour photographs.
This edition is co-published with Lyon Ecole des Beaux-Arts (ENSBA) and was made possible with support from KIT Düsseldorf and MUDAM Luxembourg as part of exhibitions.

Statement by the selection committee
“This is an extremely ambitious high-quality publication that meets all of the requirements of the Kultur | lx grant perfectly. It documents the development in the artist’s work and highlights aspects of his research. Both the contributions requested and the publisher chosen are first rate.”

Next Call for Portfolio Grant Applications
The next call for projects will open on June 27 and close on September 18, 2022.