Victoire Thierrée
Multidisciplinary artist
2023
Photo by © Arnaud Lajeunie
"My sculptures, photographs and films are made in relation to the issues raised by contemporary wars and the "defense" industry that fuels them."
I am a multidisciplinary artist. I was born in 1988, and I live and work in Paris. By entering closed communities, I conceive the infiltration as an artistic practice. The works resulting from these experiences hold a dual status, as both revealers and reporters.
I am a graduate of the École de photographie des Gobelins (class of 2011) and the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris (class of 2014), where I completed a postgraduate research program in 2019. In 2020, I was the first artist invited by the École de Guerre in Paris, to follow the French army high command training program for senior officers. I was also invited by the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP) to record a podcast about my experience there, and to speak about my photography work on Okinawa Island (Japan). This project is supported by the Centre national des arts plastiques français (CNAP) and by the Fondation des Artistes.
More recently, I won the Emerging Artist of the Year Prize at the Centre Wallonie Bruxelles, in Paris. In 2020, I shot my second short film Sans Lune, a Jonas Films production, with support from the National Centre for Cinema and the Moving Image (CNC – DICréAM). In March 2022, the Hestia Art gallery in Belgrade (Serbia) invited me to create a work around the famed F117 "Night Hawk" US military plane.
Victoire Thierrée graduated from the École de photographie des Gobelins in Paris in 2011 and from the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris in 2014, where she also did a post-diploma research in 2019. In 2020, she was the first artist invited by the École de Guerre in Paris to follow the French army high command training program for senior officers. Her work was shown at group exhibitions at the Grande Halle of La Villette (Paris), CentQuatre (Paris), La Friche de la Belle de Mai (Marseille), CRAC 19 (Montbéliard), and at the Emerige Révélations Grant Prize and the Balzac Photography Prize, both of which were held in Paris.
In 2019 and 2020, for my postgraduate research project at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, I researched the Experiments in Art & Technology (E.A.T.) group. I now wish to pursue this research further at Villa Albertine, with support from July Martin, the widow of Billy Kluver (who co-founded E.A.T. with R. Rauschenberg), who lives a short distance from New York City. She will assist me in planning my research, which I will conduct at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, as it holds the majority of the E.A.T. archives, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I will focus specifically on Gyorgy Kepes (1906–2001), generally acknowledged as the last disciple of modern Bauhaus, who launched the M.I.T.’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies and created innovative forms of army camouflage during WWII. His productions were at the center of the disputes around MIT’s connections to the military during the Vietnam War.
Alongside this, I wish to make a hybrid film – both documentary and experimental – examining my own artistic practice, dealing about issues related to modern conflicts and their resulting objects, particularly the US F117 stealth attack aircraft. I will visit the USAF Museum in Ohio, and the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, to consult its archives and meet its curators. This film work will continue on from my two earlier shorts, Birds of Prey (2018) and Sans Lune (2021), which depicted the links between military technology, aesthetics, and nature in the current geopolitical, strategical and historical context.
My artistic creation is always conducive to a great deal of research, discoveries, visits, and encounters. My sculptures, photographs, and films touch on issues related to modern conflicts and the so-called defense industry that sustains them. As part of my residency in the US, I will conduct research in such US institutions as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, and the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. These research projects will form springboards for accumulating information, forms, stories, and leads, which will later turn into works, installations, sculptures, etc.
Modern US history has been consistently entangled in the conflicts of the past few decades. The country leads the way in the air, space and military industries; as of 2022, it remains the world’s primary arms exporter. During my residency, I will research the first-ever stealth plane, the F117, whose existence was leaked after it was shot down in 1999, during the Kosovo War. To do so, I will go to the US Air Force Museum in Ohio and the Palm Spring Air Museum in California, to meet with curators and film the only publicly exhibited F117 in the world. I will also conduct research on the Experiments in Art & Technology (E.A.T.) non-profit organization, in New York City, Los Angeles, and Brooklyn Heights, in order to build bridges between opposite worlds.
In partnership with
Located in Paris’ 19th arrondissement, the CENTQUATRE-PARIS is a multipurpose art space which hosts and showcases artist residencies and artistic productions for audiences and artists from around the world. Conceived as a collaborative platform by its director José-Manuel Gonçalvès and his teams, the venue provides access to all of today’s arts from all disciplines, through a resolutely popular, contemporary and cutting edge programme. An atypical venue with shops and restaurants, it also boasts free access spaces for artistic practices and activities for young children.
The Centre national des arts plastiques (Cnap) is a public institution under the French Ministry of Culture. It manages over 105,000 works from France’s national contemporary art collection, the Fonds national d’art contemporain. It aims to support and promote artistic creation in France, and assists artists and art professionals with their projects.
Founded in 1993, Le 19, Crac is devoted to the promotion, production, and mediation of contemporary art. Welcoming four exhibitions per year, Le 19, Crac proposes an artistic program seeking to mirror the issues of contemporary art, to develop territorial residencies, and place the audiences at the core of the project.
Jonas Films is an independent film production company, founded by Elsa Klughertz in 2015. The company works with directors from different backgrounds - cinema or contemporary art - and from different countries - France, Taïwan, Iran or Turkey. Jonas Films has produced ten short films (selected at La Berlinale, Rotterdam, Cinéma du Réel, Go Short, New Directors New Films) by directors with whom the company has committed to produce their features. The company has produced three documentary features in the United States and Iran with the support of CNC Cinéma du Monde.