Julia Hountou

Julia Hountou
Period: 2009-2010
Profession: Art historian Guest artist at the Académie de France in Rome – Villa Médicis for twelve months, from April 2009 Doctorate in Contemporary Art History (qualified in the 18th and 22nd sections), Julia Hountou worked on
Les Actions de Gina Pane de 1968 à 1981 as part of her doctorate at the Université de Paris I – Panthéon – Sorbonne. Her thesis took the form of a book entitled
Les Actions de Gina Pane de 1968 à 1981 : De la fusion avec la nature à l’empathie sociale, soon to be published by Editions des Archives Contemporaines, in collaboration with the École Normale Supérieure des Lettres et Sciences Humaines de Lyon. Her stay at Villa Medici is an opportunity to deepen her research into performative practice in Italy. After two years as a temporary teaching and research assistant at the Université de Marne-la-Vallée, she taught modern and contemporary art and the history of photography at the Université d’Evry Val d’Essonne, Academic Programs Abroad (Paris), the Université Inter-Âges de Créteil (Paris XII), the Université de Paris X – Nanterre and the Université Jules Verne de Picardie (Amiens). She has also lectured on contemporary art at the École Normale Supérieure (Rue d’Ulm, Paris), La Ferme du Buisson (Centre d’art contemporain, Noisiel) and La Filature, Mulhouse. Co-author of the book
Gina Pane – Lettre à un(e) inconnu(e) (E.N.S. B-a, Coll. Ecrits d’artistes) with B. Chavanne and A. Marchand, she collaborates with various magazines:
Etudes
photographiques. Chimères (revue des schizoanalyses founded by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari).
Ligeia, dossiers sur l’art.
La Nouvelle Revue
d’Esthétique.
Verso Arts et Lettres .
PerformArts.
Art présence. Flux News .
Turbulences vidéo.
Lunes (Réalités,
Parcours, Représentations de Femmes). And several websites:
Exporevue.com, PerformArts, uneexpo.com. Author of the catalog for the “Rafael Mahdavi” exhibition at the École Supérieure d’Art et de Design d’Amiens in April 2009, she also contributed to the exhibition catalog
Michel Journiac (Ed. Les musées de Strasbourg and ENSB-a de Paris) in 2004. She participates in the work of the Institut des textes et manuscrits modernes (ITEM), directed by Pierre Marc de Biasi (CNRS Laboratory and Ecole Normale Supérieure), which studies writers’ manuscripts to elucidate the processes of genesis. She is a member of the “Histoire de l’art – Processus de création et genèse de l’œuvre” team under the direction of Ségolène Le Men (Prof. at Univ. Paris X, IUF) and Pierre-Marc De Biasi (CNRS – DR). She also participates in the work of the “Passages 20-21 / Centre d’Etudes Poétiques” laboratory directed by Jean-Marie Gleize (Lyon 2 and Ecole Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences humaines), pursuing her research into the notions of “act” and “action” in artistic practices of the second half of the 20th century. As part of the “Théâtre des expositions” at the Villa Médicis – Académie de France in Rome, art historian Julia Hountou has invited fashion designer Pascal Gautrand to present his work, from May 26 to June 1, 2010. Through a text (written during her residency at Villa Medici in 2009-2010), Julia Hountou presents the fashion designer’s artistic approach, questioning the creation and production process and, more specifically, the notion of collecting. Indeed, during his stay at Villa Medici in 2008-2009, Pascal Gautrand collected clothing no longer worn by Villa residents and staff. As part of the “Theatre of Exhibitions”, the garment collection work will continue in the form of a
workshop entitled
Mani d’opera / mains d’œuvre, during which, from May 26 to June 1, 2010, the fashion designer will put on a performance
in situ, with the aim of highlighting the stages of manufacture over the course of the week. The garments will all be cut into squares and assembled to create a huge patchwork that will ultimately compose a mosaic of recomposed “Médicéenne” identities – in other words, a metaphorical portrait of all the people who donated their costumes. This giant “pixelated” standard will result in a new iconography relating to the hand, as a place of humanity, a scene of the intimate person, a symbol of the vital and creative energy thanks to which men leave a trace.”
Julia Hountou, Villa Médicis, Rome, March 2010 Some articles by Julia Hountou: Julia Hountou, “La blessure chez Gina Pane : un langage polysémique”, Ligéia, XXIII° ANNÉE, N° 97-98-99-100, January-June 2010, pp. 6-18. revue-ligeia.com/contenu.php Julia Hountou, “Le rôle de l’autoportrait performatif chez Gina Pane”, Visage et portrait, visage ou portrait, Presses Universitaires de Paris X – Nanterre, 2010, 190 p.; pp. 63-74. pressesparisouest.fr