many texts are available here:
https://www.robertmilin.fr/webappli/front/index.php
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1- Extract of Robert Milin, artiste confidentiel, by Jean Charles Agboton, 2003
2- Art, people, public space, a letter from Delphine Suchecki and Robert Milin sent to Veduta, Biennale de Lyon, 2009
_________________________________________________________________
Robert Milin, artiste confidentiel
Jean-Charles Agboton-Jumeau (art critic)
0.0
Here
in the Tarn-et-Garonne department lies a small town of 2,790 inhabitants,
located on the banks of the Two Seas canal in the Garonne river valley,
accessed by a motorway of the same name. Located where RN* 20 and 113
intersect, and midway between Toulouse and Montauban, the town is bordered on
the district’s northern edge by the Côtes du Frontonnais vinyards (appellation
contrôlée): this is Grisolles, whose name derives from ecclesiola,
or « little church ». And here, close to the Saint-Martin parish church, is a
half-timbered house with pink brickwork built in the XVIth century, converted into
the Museum of Art and Folk Tradition known as the Théodore Calbet, named after
the XIXth
century
school teacher who started the modest collection of Gallo-Roman artefacts,
period clothing, and weapons and earthenware of more or less ancient or local
origin. Supervising this collection is a young curator, upon whose invitation
Robert Milin specially devised and produced a piece for Grisolles. This piece
is entitled: Beware of (Licking) Dog!
0.1
According
to a protocol established about twelve years ago, Robert Milin went to
Grisolles for a visit1 prior to the project’s design. In the course of his wandering through
the town, once known for « its large fairs and broom factories », the artist
would stumble upon a city bylaw calling visitors to order in the following
manner: « Attention dog owners: for your information, pet excrement is not
welcome on these premises. In order to maintain sanitary conditions, pet owners
are asked to prevent their dogs from relieving
1 Routes nationales, French A Roads (translator’s
note).
1. Let us recall that the verb « to visit » is derived from the Latin visitare,
the frequentative form of visere, which means « to see » (Le Petit
Robert, French dictionary). P 59
themselves
on the premises. We rely on your understanding and your sense of
responsibility. »
0.2
This
is the content of the bylaw, and its form is just as noteworthy: sheathed in a
transparent plastic sleeve, specially constructed materials were required to
display it; namely, a construction made from a sheet of plywood slightly
exceeding A4 format paper, on an acacia wood stake, set in the ground at eye
level. Its convenience and affordability aside, the choice of this form was
doubtless dictated by the particular topography resulting from the object of
said FYI notice: the dogs’ excrement. Hence, contrary to the growing
standardization of urban furniture, signs, and public billposting, these signs
belong to an outdated handicraft rather than to the technology now generally in
use.
0.3
After
this topographic survey, Robert Milin would, so to speak, carry out a casting.
Throughout his repeated visits to Grisolles – preferably staying in the homes of
the town’s inhabitants2 – he would thus pay a visit to about ten canine lovers, with the open
intention of linking them to his preparatory work. How? By gathering images of
these people’s dogs, and in a dual sense: on a literal level, he would compile
photographs; on a figurative level, he would assemble, through the words of his
interlocutors, the ways they thought of their dogs, as well as their dogs’
names.
0.4
Once
this documentation was gathered in vivo, Robert Milin would process it
by executing a series of artistic and topographical transfers or transferences,
in other words, a translaboration (working-through). Primo,
having retained a preexisting form – the notice on a stake – he would scatter
about forty of them throughout Grisolles according to a layout not necessarily
intersecting the city’s coprography. Secundo, he would replace the text
of said FYI with the comments of his interlocutors regarding their dogs. Tertio,
based on selected photographs, he would draw his own rendition of the dogs, but
with the means at hand: that is, with ordinary graphic or chromatic means,
exclusively available in the homes of each host (ballpoint or felt tip pen,
pencil, gouache, watercolor, etc., possibly for the use of children, among
others). On the signs, these portraits would be subtitled with real names
collected by the artist, but without any correspondence between the names and
the dogs depicted, just as the comments are left unsigned by their authors.
Thus, we see that what’s translaborated in this instance are elements
that existed before the artist’s intervention, reworked through swapping
2. Accordingly, I’d like to thank warmly
Rolande and Michel Sauret for their rare hospitality during my stay in
Grisolles, as well as Yvan Poulain for his kindness P 61
and
interpolating the borrowed elements, so that they « float between the shores of
perception of the sign and that of the image, without ever settling on either
of them3
».
From public or private language to intimate or anonymous speech, and from the
oral to the written, from canine lovers to dogs and vice versa, from
photography to painting and from the ready-made to the hand-made, or from craft
to art, Robert Milin always wavers between fiction and documentary, real and
imaginary, without ever settling on any of them.
1.0
Thus,
after the collective
translaboration, the exhibition of the
piece may
take place in the very
streets, under the following title:
Beware of
(Licking) Dog! another
element borrowed from a plaque on
the door of a
house in Grisolles. The
dog pictures, whose technique and
colours rather belong
to so-called
naïve or pop-art, or even infantile art,
are each accompanied by
one of about
twenty canine lovers’quotations,
which are just as elliptical or
artless.
In these more or less poignant or
candid images and comments we thus
see,
not only metonymic portraits, but also vedute; in other words, windows
that, as we are aware, made « the land into a landscape » in occidental
painting4. But contrary to
pictorial tradition, these vedute – the signs – are placed outdoors like
so many glimpses into interior spaces, in which the animals – pets par
excellence – play an important part. In doing so, Robert Milin provides the
landscape with a change of scenery, by indexing precisely those who live in the
landscape, albeit indirectly. In addition, contrary to the (di)vision of
artistic labour (which is also a division of the subjectile), the artist mixes
genres and techniques: the photographer in turn becomes animal painter, poster
designer, or landscape architect, just as on other occasions, he would become a
painters’ foreman and decorator, a gardener, etc5.
3. J.-P. Sartre, [The Imaginary],
Paris, 1940, p. 54.
4. A. Roger, [A Brief Treatise on
Landscape], Paris, 1997, p. 73.
5. See for instance The Office Workshop, Ivry-sur-Seine, 1994 ;
let us also recall, with M. Warnke, that : « Before the XIXth century,
painting pennants, harnesses, walls, or even human bodies was in no way
considered humiliating. » Hence, in addition to canvasses, Holbein the Younger
was « al- ways concocting, decorating, or painting something ; furniture or
trinkets, effigies or badges, ships’ flags and banners, riding saddles, or even
the biscuits set out on the table. » [The Court Ar- tist], Paris, 1989,
p. 249-250.
P 63
The full text is in this book:
http://www.amazon.fr/Robert-Milin-Jean-Charles-Agboton-Jumeau/dp/2848090154
________________________________________
We, Robert Milin, an artist, and Delphine Suchecki, associated with his projects, were invited to produce an artwork in the district of Montmousseau Herriot, Vénissieux, as a continuation of the one created in the district of Etats-Unis, Lyon.
We expressed our concerns regarding the feasibility of order in the district of Montmousseau Herriot. Very restricted times were assigned to us, what is more, the municipal services implication was very weak and very slow.
Arguments eventually convinced us that things were still possible: on one hand we had the promise of an implication of the city and on the other we met with the president of the tenants association who seized the project with enthusiasm.
Then we wonder: why not start by asking us for a few possible dates ? Why do the changes reach us during a casual conversation? Why aren't the inhabitants informed at all?
What is more, we met several people of the world of art who came to the Lyon Biennial, looked at Robert’s works in the Museum of Contemporary Art of Lyon, but did not come to the district, telling Robert in good conscience that his in situ installation was not eventually for them but for the inhabitants.
All of this leads to questioning the sense of making art in these quarters. For who and why do we make art here?
To this end, we take our time to meet the local actors, then the inhabitants.
The method? To come and go without trying to force anyone, to leave time, to present our project, to answer to people’s lack of understanding …
However, thanks to the support of Sophie Vargas, president of the tenants association, the project could succeed. A minimum of social life holds thanks to people like her, even in districts like Montmusseau where Robert placed a light box indicating “No Justice, no peace. ”
But here are the light boxes installed and nobody or very few from the world of art come to Montmousseau.
Our work does not consist of coming to deposit a beautiful object in a district and leaving. It takes into account the context in its complexities, it is implied even if it is not « strictly speaking » political or militant. But it resonates with these questions.
These works in public space often become meaningful only in their temporality. In fact the time allows the appropriation, the discussion. Small symbolic events like a vernissage make it possible to reactivate the dialogue and the installation.
________________________________________
2. Art, people, public space
We, Robert Milin, an artist, and Delphine Suchecki, associated with his projects, were invited to produce an artwork in the district of Montmousseau Herriot, Vénissieux, as a continuation of the one created in the district of Etats-Unis, Lyon.
Our way of working calls a certain slowness to mobilize
collaboration with inhabitants in the respect of the people and the groups.
We expressed our concerns regarding the feasibility of order in the district of Montmousseau Herriot. Very restricted times were assigned to us, what is more, the municipal services implication was very weak and very slow.
Arguments eventually convinced us that things were still possible: on one hand we had the promise of an implication of the city and on the other we met with the president of the tenants association who seized the project with enthusiasm.
Today, for the fourth time, we have discovered that the date
of the vernissage, fixed by the Lyon Biennial, has been delayed without consulting,
neither the president of the tenants association nor even us.
However, without this ardent woman defending the
tenants, this project could not have come out within such short a time.
Then we wonder: why not start by asking us for a few possible dates ? Why do the changes reach us during a casual conversation? Why aren't the inhabitants informed at all?
What is more, we met several people of the world of art who came to the Lyon Biennial, looked at Robert’s works in the Museum of Contemporary Art of Lyon, but did not come to the district, telling Robert in good conscience that his in situ installation was not eventually for them but for the inhabitants.
All of this leads to questioning the sense of making art in these quarters. For who and why do we make art here?
Is it to be able to say that we still do something for the ones usually excluded
from art? To purify ourselves?
Ourselves, we think, that one
cannot intervene in the disadvantaged districts, marked socially and
symbolically, as one intervenes in a gallery. It’s obvious!
To work in Minguettes as Robert Milin did is a real
commitment, sometimes even putting oneself in danger.
It’s a political commitment, with the deep sense of the term,
but also a moral and a physical one, near people living in the districts almost
abandoned by the Republic in spite of promises of improvement having been made
for more than 20 years now.
That’s as if art were exclusive to certain populations and certain places so we did
a small something here just to show it was done, but with no deep conviction, this
being of minor importance.
How not to become a political alibi? How not to be manipulated
as an artist?
With each creation in a sensitive neighbourhood we look for the right balance between art autonomy, consideration to context and respect for people.
With each creation in a sensitive neighbourhood we look for the right balance between art autonomy, consideration to context and respect for people.
To this end, we take our time to meet the local actors, then the inhabitants.
The method? To come and go without trying to force anyone, to leave time, to present our project, to answer to people’s lack of understanding …
To this end, we need long months of work or then, when the timeframes
are limited, a real support of people knowing the area, being able quickly to lead
us towards those who are good go-betweens linking the population and the
project.
Here we have had neither one nor the other.
However, thanks to the support of Sophie Vargas, president of the tenants association, the project could succeed. A minimum of social life holds thanks to people like her, even in districts like Montmusseau where Robert placed a light box indicating “No Justice, no peace. ”
But here are the light boxes installed and nobody or very few from the world of art come to Montmousseau.
The journalists or other people interested are taken along possibly
to Lyon 8. Like in case of a Le Monde journalist who came to interview Robert
in Lyon but not in Montmusseau. Again, no time for Vénissieux.
There is so little time. For several months, we have hoped to
organize a small convivial moment with the inhabitants, a small vernissage
around some tables. But here again, all has been delayed.
Since July, the inhabitants have waited. But they’ve stopped
waiting any more, having told us yesterday : we are so used to it!
Our work does not consist of coming to deposit a beautiful object in a district and leaving. It takes into account the context in its complexities, it is implied even if it is not « strictly speaking » political or militant. But it resonates with these questions.
These works in public space often become meaningful only in their temporality. In fact the time allows the appropriation, the discussion. Small symbolic events like a vernissage make it possible to reactivate the dialogue and the installation.
Successive cancellations of vernissage and a complete lack
of communication with the inhabitants (or some active representatives at least)
revive in them this feeling of being excluded from the world they perceive as
elitist.
Robert Milin and Delphine Suchecki, October 20th, 2009
