Support for the contemporary arts

Precious People is not a straightforward photography exhibition. The show also includes musical performances, reflecting the twin passions of artist Kim Young Il. Presented at the Atelier Hermès, Kim Young Il’s work explores the ritual aspects of Korean culture.

Joo Choon Lin’s installation at Third Floor invites viewers to explore the collective memory and modern technology through innovative objects (at the time) which have now fallen out of use. The Singaporean artist prompts reflections on the fleeting passage of time and the acceleration of technical progress.

Atelier Hermès presents the three contenders for the 13th Hermès Foundation Missulsang. Organized by the Fondation d’Entreprise Hermès since 2008, the prize salutes a Korean artist selected each year by the distinguished international jury.

Fascinated by social groups and their characteristic attire, Charles Fréger’s latest photographic work explores the figure of the ‘wild man’ across European societies and cultures. TH13 presents a selection of his contemporary portraits, evocative of ancient, ancestral rites.  

The rediscovery of an unpublished book and film about pre-war Korea inspired a joint project by artists Natacha Nisic and Park Chan-Kyong at Atelier Hermès. Films, installations, archives and personal writings explore the nature of cultural identity, religion and belief.

Martina Hoogland Ivanow explores our ambiguous relationship to distance with a photographic series that interweaves remoteness and closeness. A refined work on atmospheres, colours, shadows and lights that instils a touching dimension to the portraits and landscapes exhibited at the Gallery at Hermès.

Patrick Neu’s work in situ at La Verrière is a thoughtful tribute to the history of art, and a gesture of artistic humility, working with an unexpected, eminently transient material – soot – to propose an alternative, contemporary reading of our conventional artistic culture.

Adrian Sauer explores image-making through the evolution of photographic processes and new media, from mass reproduction to unique, one-off prints. Invited by TH13 curator Paul Cottin, German-born Sauer addresses the essence of the medium of photography.

After Arles and Paris, Delpire & Cie – an exhibition by Rencontres d’Arles – comes to New York. Focusing on the work of visionary publisher Robert Delpire, this important retrospective is spread across four venues, including the Gallery at Hermès, with support from the Aperture Foundation.

Strange cloud forms float in the Forum space… Part architectural model, part plastic installation, a new work by Argentinian artist Tomás Saraceno offers a politicized, poetic alternative to contemporary lifestyles.

La Verrière presents a monumental, three-dimensional work by Stéphane Erouane Dumas – a new variation on the triptych, exploring an endlessly-revisited, inexhaustible natural motif. Cliffs is a painterly installation that transcends the medium and one of its longest-established forms.

Moment and Eternity overturns established codes, eschewing the gallery wall in favour of the floor, and establishing a new form of contact with the viewing public. Japanese artist Shinji Ohmaki invites us to interact with and contemplate an evolving, eminently poetic installation.

Born in Seoul in 1959, Hong Seung-Hye is a proponent of ‘organic geometry,’ and the author of a large-scale work in situ at Atelier Hermès, transforming the space into an open ‘square’ as a venue for socialization. Square Square is a bold challenge to our certainties and preconceptions.

Mind’s Eye is an exchange of glances, views, visions… astutely orchestrated by Cory Jacobs, curator of The Gallery at Hermès. American photographers Matt Ducklo and Matthew Monteith – showing together for the first time – explore our responses to works of art.

With a play on words in the title, Yamaguchi Akira’s Forum exhibition is a humorous tribute to his native Tokyo – revealed here as a city both familiar and exotic, captured in a nostalgic vision embracing past, present, and future.

French duo Cécile Hesse and Gaël Romier structure their photographic work as a series of visual tales defined by strange, highly sophisticated and carefully orchestrated settings. TH13 premières Août, the latest collection in a troubling, off-beat tradition.

With a tribute to Lubin Baugin in the title, Côme Mosta-Heirt’s installation at La Verrière positions itself as the heir to a highly elaborate, mannered style of painting. Viewers are invited to contemplate a work exploring the rich complexity of deepest black.

Three days after the 2011 earthquake, Area Park entered Miyagi Prefecture in Japan, on the edge of the Fukushima zone. In this devastated landscape, the Korean artist found a photograph album rendered anonymous by the disaster – the starting point for a fictitious dialogue with the past, and the future of contemporary photography.

Trained in Abidjan, Grenoble and Düsseldorf, French-Cameroonian artist Barthélémy Toguo is the author of a universally-accessible body of work, with a strong social dimension - as witnessed in his new installation for late 2011 at La Verrière, in Brussels.

British artist Ryan Gander was invited to create a new work for the Forum’s 10th birthday celebrations. The intriguing installation revisits the history of Western art, the memory of the Forum itself and the roll-call of its exhibitions since opening in 1991.

A finalist in the Hermès Foundation Missulsang prize for Korean contemporary art in 2009, Rho Jae Oon (b. 1971) works in situ at the Atelier Hermès, with a solo exhibition revisiting the adventures of Mulian – a disciple of Buddha – as he struggles to free his mother from the torments of Hell.

Indonesian artist Christine Ay Tjoe takes the viewer on a spiritual journey with a delicate installation exploring the mystery of hope – a sentiment pivotal to the interaction of the physical and immaterial worlds.

The autumn exhibition at TH13 presents the intriguing photographic work of Olivier Metzger. We Came Along this Road is the mysterious journal of an artist in search of the essential, inner quality of his human subjets, or landscapes – taking an approach comparable to that of a theatre producer.

An encounter between art and meditation, a surprising synthesis of Buddhism and south American art: Jean -Charles Pigeau’s work is an invitation to embark on an inner journey. Pigeau has created a monumental sculpture, an object of contemplation, bathed in the light of La Verrière.

Each fall, the presentation of the Hermès Foundation Missulsang marks the Foundation’s support for Korea’s young contemporary artists. Ahead of the announcement of this year’s winner, an exhibition at the Atelier Hermès presents the works of the three finalists.

Japanese artist Rinko Kawauchi presents for the first time in the Unites States a selection of photographs entitled "Illuminance" at the Gallery at Hermès. Her pictures reveal the extraordinary potential of seemingly ordinary, snapshot images.

German photographer Sonja Braas's Forces series is the product of several years of work, exploring the essence of photographic representation through the medium of the natural world. Six images from the series are being shown at Galerie TH13, in Bern.

Lionel Estève is a French artist working with colour and movement, based in Brussels for over twenty years. For La Verrière, he has created a monumental mobile – his biggest yet - reflecting the scale of the space.

Ten Thousand Waves is British video artist Isaac Julien's first solo exhibition in Korea, featuring a new version of the work of the same name, reconfigured for the event.

Indian artist Ranjani Shettar was born in 1977, in Bangalore, where she still lives and works today. Her sculptural installations are inspired by the constantly-evolving fabric of her native city. Third Floor invited her to stage her first solo exhibition in Singapore.

The Fondation d'entreprise Hermès presents the third edition of Arbol Objeto de Arte, inviting a contemporary artist to create a work centred on the magnificent jacaranda tree on Mexico City's Presidente Mazaryck avenue, as part of the fringe programme for the Zona Maco contemporary art fair.

Works by young Finnish artist Anni Leppälä compose a mysterious, highly personal narrative. Commissioned to produce a photographic series specifically for TH13 in Berne, she presents an exhibition of images evoking her dreamlike world.

Charlotte Charbonnel defines her work as 'one thing that reveals another'. Invited by the Fondation d'entreprise Hermès to create a work in situ at La Verrière in Brussels, she has transformed the exhibition space into a giant musical instrument, paradoxically silent yet full of sound.

Since 2006, Third Floor has focused on new works of contemporary art. This winter, the exhibition space presents photographic and video works by Korean artist Yeondoo Jung.

Based in Los Angeles and dividing his time between Mexico and China, Japanese artist Yutaka Sone is the guest of the Forum, in Tokyo, with Snow, an installation inspired by mountain snowscapes, both real and imagined.

Young Swiss photographers Geoffrey Cottenceau and Romain Rousset share a love of off-beat, alternative approaches, makeshift objects and comedy. At the invitation of the Fondation d'entreprise Hermès, they are delighting visitors to Galerie TH13 in Berne, in the final quarter of 2010.

A founder member of the Supports/Surfaces group in 1970, Claude Viallat's paintings explore the infinite possibilities of systems of coloured forms. This winter, he presents an exhibition of original work at La Verrière in Brussels.

Korean conceptual artist Sora Kim is a graduate of the University of Seoul and the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris. As the guest of the Atelier Hermès, she presents fifteen works representing new directions in her artistic career.

From October 1st to November 27th 2010, the Gallery at Hermès presents a series of photographic portraits by Jerry Thompson, taken on the streets of New York in the 1970s and 1980s, together with a selection of exceptional prints by Walker Evans.

Danae Stratou explores the confrontation between the human and natural worlds. Her new work for La Verrière, commissioned by the Fondation d'entreprise Hermès, is the first in a series of “Vital Space Projects”. Stratou represented Greece at the 1999 Venice Biennale.

From 26 August 2010, Le Forum presents an installation featuring new pieces by the architect and visual artist Didier Fiuza Faustino. The original works have been co-produced with musician Russell Haswell and graphic artist Hiroya Oku.

The annual Hermès Foundation Missulsang reflects the Foundation's support for young contemporary artists in Korea. Installations by the three finalists – including the overall winner, Yangachi – are presented at the Atelier Hermès.

Photographer Iren Stehli divides her time between Switzerland and the Czech Republic. For the past 30 years, her black-and-white images have explored the concept of time. As the guest of the Hermès Foundation at TH13, she reveals a fragment of contemporary eastern European history.

Claude Lévêque's controversial work Le Grand Soir was created for the French pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009. His latest installation, Ideal Circus at La Verrière, sets out once again to challenge contemporary society, through the medium of the circus.

Bertrand Lavier's work explores the codes of 20th-century art. Working in the tradition of Marcel Duchamp and the New Realists, he examines the function of language and ready-made in sculpture. Atelier Hermès presents his first solo exhibition in Asia.

In Spring 2009, Le Forum presented an exhibition devoted to Japan's former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa. Upon retirement in his early 60s, the former statesman began a new career as an artist, ceramicist and poet, exploring the traditional practice of Seiko Udoku.

American photographer Richard Renaldi's experimental approach plays on the contrast between the apparent banality of specific situations, and their inner, inexpressible strangeness. The Touching Strangers series provokes unaccustomed close contact between perfect strangers.

After representing Singapore at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009, with his film Life of Imitation, video artist Ming Wong created a new original film, inspired by Luchino Visconti's screen interpretation of Thomas Mann's novel Death in Venice.

Archetypal Landscape presents a fragmented retrospective of the work of Leo Fabrizio over a ten-year period – from his latest photographs to his earliest images, testifying to an enduring fascination with the "fabrication" of landscape, and its representation.

Internationally-acclaimed Korean video artist Kimsooja created the inaugural exhibition for 2010 at the Atelier Hermès: an installation of seven videos exploring our planet's four component elements – earth, air, fire and water.

Photographer, video artist and sculptor Motohiko Odani represented Japan at the 2003 Venice Biennale. In December 2009, the Forum's closing exhibition of the season featured a series of Motohiko Odani's sculptures – variations on the theme of bodies and the energy fields they transmit.

American artist Sharon Core trained as a photographer and painter, forging close links between both media in her work today. Her tribute to the still-life painter Raphaelle Peale (1774-1825) furthers this dialogue and her exploration of the interplay between the two disciplines.

Sarah Girard's photographs glimpse the interiors of psychoanalysts' consulting rooms. Minimalist details that reveal so much more: a curtain, a desk, "that" couch. Intimist portraits of spaces inhabited by the lives recounted there, day after day…

French artist Christian Bonnefoi achieves a subtle balance of high art and mystery, with abstract paintings encapsulating swathes of artistic heritage.

Leading French contemporary artist, Jean-Michel Alberola, creates part-figurative, part-abstract drawings, wall paintings, sculptures and installations. His protean approach explores the links between writing, painting and the spoken word, inviting viewers to decipher his works in their own way.

Born in 1984, Rei Sato is the youngest member of Kaikai Kiki Corporation, a Tokyo collective founded by Takashi Murakami. Her colourful, childlike universe celebrates an optimistic vision of life and human relationships. Her latest installation, in Singapore, recreates a popular Tokyo café.

Created in 2000 (and supported by the Fondation since 2008) the "Missulsang" prize salutes Korea's vibrant contemporary art scene. The Atelier Hermès in Seoul presents works by the 2009 finalists, before judging by an international jury.

American photographer Victoria Sambunaris captures the landscapes of the Far West: an eloquent, thought-provoking encounter between Nature and human intervention.

Aïda Kazarian – the Belgian Royal Academy's only woman member – explored gestural painting and communication on a huge canvas, during a month's residency at La Verrière in Brussels.

Argentinian artist Luis Terán (b. 1977) brings A Traveler’s Stories to Third Floor, inspired by his first visit to Singapore: an evocation of childhood, and the boundless curiosity of his early years.

Kohei Nawa's work addresses the Kantian question: what can we know? L_B_S presents objects, stuffed animals, musical instruments, artificial fruit – their surfaces transformed by bubble-like "cells" or "froth", encouraging viewers to reflect on their perception of the world.

Jim Lambie's work is inspired by music first and foremost. The Scottish ex-DJ uses altered images of rock stars, and compressed vinyl discs to attain a kind of spirituality. As a guest artist in Seoul, his installation mixes painting, collage, sculpture, video and ceramics with extraordinary floor patterns of coloured strips.

Floral photography: an exercise in style born in the 19th-century and revisited since by a host of photographers, including Erwan Frotin. His Flora Olbiensis series, shown in Bern, testifies to the rebirth of a genre handed down from Steichen, Blossfeldt and Mapplethorpe.

Leading American and international contemporary artist Peter Downsbrough adopts an experimental approach, around three core themes: language, architectural space and time. As the guest of La Verrière in Brussels (his adopted home of 20 years), Downsbrough "tables" a resonant message…

Rama Lama Ding Dong is a head-on collision between two artistic approaches – a chance encounter between painter MeeNa Park and designer Jackson Hong, taking its title from the words of an American rock'n'roll song.

The Forum's first exhibition for 2009 featured work by artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller: a mutual dialogue and a powerful appeal to the senses.

Acclaimed as an artist at the crossroad between Constructivism and Minimalism, Jean-Gabriel Coignet's installation at La Verrière explores aspects of planar and spatial geometry.

Following two presentations at La Verrière in Brussels and the Third Floor in Singapore, Belgian artist Laurence Dervaux responds to an invitation from the Atelier Hermès in Seoul. A series of illusory installations celebrate the human body – and its humours – from within.

Argentinian artist Flavia Da Rin presents her imaginary landscapes in Singapore: an enchanted world peopled with magical, benign figures, evoking our childhood memories.

For his first solo show in Japan, French artist Alain Séchas was invited by the Forum to present a selection of his major works, from automata mounted on railtracks, to drawings and sculptures that immerse the audience in distinctive fictional worlds, day and night.

Catherine Claude is a self-taught naturalist and photographer with a background in dance. Travelling solo to remote regions of the world, her works capture those « haunted » but virgin lands that have never been populated. In Bern, an exhibition of her photographic series reveals a secret natural world.

Whisper is an installation by the French artist Monique Frydman: against the delicately coloured walls of La Verrière, Japanese paper sheets embody translucency, movement and the play of light. A subtle murmur amid the bewildering images and tumult of modern life.

The work of Korean artist Park Chan-Kyong (b. Seoul, 1965) explores the fear and aversion that traditional beliefs and superstitions can evoke in local populations. His photographic and video essay fouses on the Sindoan valley, at the foot of Gyeryong Mountain.

Artist N.S. Harsha explores human interaction and narrative, forging links between Indian tradition and modern realities, between his native city of Mysore and the metropolises where his work is shown.

Pannonica de Koenigswarter supported the greatest names in jazz throughout the 1950s and 60s. Her Polaroids and writings are a precious record of their meetings and shared moments.

Singaporian artist Heman Chong (born 1977) represented Singapore at the Venice Biennale in 2003. In 2008 he was the guest of Third Floor, for his first solo exhibition in Singapore since 2004 – a mysterious, light-filled, conceptual installation.

The H BOX project commissions new video works for a specially-designed "nomadic" viewing unit. H BOX is hosted by museums and art events around the world.

As part of the third season of artists’ residencies offered by the Fondation d’Entreprise Hermès, André Ramirez will be the guest of the Ateliers AS at Pierre-Bénite, creating a three-dimension graphic work exploring the fine art of silk printing.

Félix Pinquier’s work at the Maroquinerie de Belley will explore the visual representation of sound. The Foundation’s third annual season of artists’ residencies takes a fresh look at the exceptional skills of Hermès artisans, through the prism of contemporary art.

Oh You Kyeong’s residency at the Puiforcat metal workshops explores the mastery of fragility through the use of the finest raw materials. Mentored by Giuseppe Penone, Korean-born Kyeong is taking part in the third season of artists’ residencies supported by the Fondation d’Entreprise Hermès.  

Oliver Beer will work at the Cristalleries de Saint-Louis, for the fourth season of artists’ residencies organised by the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès. Collaborating with skilled artisans – the custodians of a unique heritage – Beer will focus on the acoustic properties of fine crystal.

Launched in 2010, the annual programme of artists’ residencies organised by the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès allows four young visual artists to discover exceptional artisan skills. Mentored by artist Susanna Fritscher, Émilie Pitoiset worked at the Maroquinerie de Pierre-Bénite in 2011.

Launched in 2010, the annual programme of artists’ residencies organised by the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès allows four young visual artists to discover exceptional artisan skills. Mentored by artist Giuseppe Penone, Atsunobu Kohira worked at the Cristalleries de Saint-Louis in 2011.

Launched in 2010, the annual programme of artists’ residencies organised by the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès allows four young visual artists to discover exceptional artisan skills. Mentored by artist Emmanuel Saulnier, Sébastien Gschwind was artist-in-residence at the Maroquinerie de Saint-Antoine in Paris, in 2011.

Launched by the Foundation d’entreprise Hermès in 2010, the annual artists’ residencies allow four young visual artists to establish a creative dialogue with a range of exceptional artisan skills. Mentored by artist Richard Deacon, Marine Class worked at the Puiforcat metalwork factory in 2011.

In 2010, the Fondation d'entreprise Hermès forged links between craftsmanship and contemporary art, with four residencies for French-speaking artists in each of the Hermès workshops. Mentored by artist Richard Deacon, Benoît Piéron worked with artisans in the silk division of Holding Textile Hermès.

In 2010, the Fondation d'entreprise Hermès forged links between craftsmanship and contemporary art, with four residencies for French-speaking artists in each of the Hermès workshops. Mentored by Emmanuel Saulnier, Olivier Sévère and glass-workers at the Cristalleries de Saint-Louis created a group of 'crystal boulders'.

In 2010, the Fondation d'entreprise Hermès forged links between craftsmanship and contemporary art, with four residencies for French-speaking artists in each of the Hermès workshops. Mentored by artist Giuseppe Penone, Simon Boudvin collaborated with leather-workers in Bogny-sur-Meuse.

In 2010, the Fondation d'entreprise Hermès forged links between craftsmanship and contemporary art, with four residencies for French-speaking artists in each of the Hermès workshops. Mentored by artist Susanna Fritscher, Elisabeth Clark worked with leather artisans at the Maroquinerie de Sayat.

Reflecting today's cross-disciplinary contemporary art scene, the Centre Pompidou's new festival – directed by Bernard Blistène – presents exhibitions, live shows, talks, concerts and performance. An unprecedented forum for creative experimentation.

Art director, publisher and curator Robert Delpire is a self-styled "presenter of pictures", working tirelessly to bring the art of photography to the widest possible public.

A leading exponent of Arte Povera, Giuseppe Penone explores the relationship between the body and Nature. In the renovated atrium of the École des Beaux-Arts, a majestic pine tree furthers his quest for the origin of things.

In spring 2009, Lausanne's Circuit contemporary art centre gave carte blanche to an highly, original duo: French visual artist Vincent Beaurin and Italian designer Alessandro Mendini. Scintille was the result…

Anne de Vandière travels the world photographing the men and women of its endangered tribes. Her work highlights a vision of diversity rooted in ancestral traditions, a world of traditional gestures intimately linked to lifestyles and skills on the verge of disappearing forever.

For New Settings 2012, transgressive virtuoso Alain Buffard brings Kurt Weill’s cast of low-life characters to Nadia Lauro’s blank, white page. A spectacle hosted by a troubling master of ceremonies: Baron Samedi, voodoo lord of excess…

Curtain – a new work by dancer-choreographer Jonah Bokaer and sculptor and stage designer Daniel Arsham – is a tongue-in-cheek salute to the end of the classic stage curtain, and a fitting curtain-raiser for New Settings 2012, full of ‘non-Newtonian’ surprises.

Performance artist and musician Gérald Kurdian – noted for his one-man shows – explores the magic of the stage, with a ground-breaking piece incorporating elements of scenography, for the first time in his work. A highly original approach, for New Settings 2012.  

Four women dancers run, jump and fly breathlessly around the stage, struggling against the grinding, crushing, suffocating force of a great machine, in a bold new production for New Settings 2012, by Julie Nioche and Virginie Mira.

Danse élargie is a competitive showcase for young talent and bold ideas at the crossroads of the contemporary performing arts. Now in its second year, performances at the Théâtre de la Ville de Paris on June 16 and 17 focused on new discoveries above and beyond the competition format.

What becomes of the (true) story of a migrant who has crossed many borders once the story is told? « New Settings 2011 » presents Writing Spaces, conceived by Eli Commins and Stéfane Perraud as a life’s tale, fragmented in the multiple imagination of the one who listen to it.

New Settings 2011 is partnering Passage à l’acte, the first co-production between choreographer Fanny de Chaillé and performance artist Philippe Ramette – an exploration of the relationship between the body and its surrounding space.

Premièred at Paris’s Festival d’Automne 2011, Raimund Hoghe’s timeless and subtle Pas de Deux is a disturbing dialogue of movement and gesture based on uncompromising mirror-play with his alter ago, Takashi Ueno.

A winter’s night. Two children aged six and seven flee Germany to get married in Africa, and are stopped at the airport. A fleeting dream captured in Sun – the essence of childhood in a single instant. A fantastical expansion of the space and scope of performance, devised by Cyril Teste and brought to life by Patrick Laffont.

Disturbed by French author Yannick Haenel’s book Jan Karski and its bold illumination of aspects of the Shoah, director Arthur Nauzyciel has adapted it for the stage. A new video work by Polish visual artist Miroslaw Balka reinforces the scope and message of a production (presented at the opening of ‘New Settings 2011’) that is also an act of witness.

The 5th Plastique Danse Flore festival continues its tradition of multidisciplinary performance at Versailles’s Potager du Roi, combining contemporary dance, performance and visual arts. This year, twenty guest artists explored the connections between art and landscape.

David Wampach’s SACRE is an ambitious, radical reworking of a foundational work of modern dance, freely adapted from the Rite of Spring, with support from the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès.