CAC Brétigny

“Desk Set” goes beyond the gallery walls and into Théâtre Brétigny, where it picks up on the theme of “Woman Is the Future of Man.” Charlotte Houette and Céline Drouin-Laroche, two young French artists whose work is steeped in feminist science fiction, are taking over the theater’s reception area with works of art, performances and texts.

Born in 1986 in Mâcon, Céline Drouin-Laroche lives and works in Montreuil. Ever since her studies at the prestigious École nationale supérieure d’arts of Paris-Cergy, she has been interested in the notion of transmission. She was part of the public outreach staff of the Palais de Tokyo and, in 2016, joined the staff of La Galerie, the contemporary art center of Noisy-le-Sec as an artist specialized in public outreach initiatives. Her projects deal with notably the question of the post-human future – interaction with other life forms or opening ourselves to flows that have neither the same source nor the same rhythm as our own biological rhythm – and the queer body, imagined not only as going beyond genders but especially as exceeding every kind of limit.

Charlotte Houette was born in 1983 and studied at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts of Paris and the Art Center College of Design of Pasadena, California. Her work has been shown at Shanaynay (Paris), Espace Louis Vuitton, Bodega (Philadelphia, United States) and the École européenne supérieure d’art of Brittany – the Rennes campus. She co-founded The Cheapest University, an experimental school created by artists where she runs the EEAPS workshop, which is based on collective readings and translations of queer and feminist science-fiction writing. She is also active in a group translating a number of texts by Amy Sillman into French, a project launched by After 8 Books and The Cheapest University, with publication slated for 2018. Her paintings are generally done on both sides of the support and include moving parts that are attached to the picture with hinges. Hence they cannot be taken in by the viewer at a single glance. This deliberate lack of distinction between the front and the back of paintings favors their being moved around and rearranged in installations that can serve as sites for readings, performances, or group events.