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The seven reasons to hope of creation and creators

Should we try to define – particularly today – reasons to hope for (and of) creation and creators? On the occasion of the opening of the fifth edition of the Forum d’Avignon which begins today Thursday, November, the consulting firm Louvre Alliance accepted to take up the challenge, with seven perspectives as stimulating as exhilarating.

Louvre Alliance could have content themselves with three reasons to hope:

• Hope from the human being: at the point closest to the artist’s soul and gesture, detecting the clues of an unquenchable thirst for creation,
• Hope from the shapes, in constant evolution, we have to illustrate how the constraints of shape are nothing more than a stimulus for tomorrow’s creations,
• Hope from the world, the deep movements on the face of the Earth can’t ignore the impact they will have on arts and culture.

It was necessary to go further, more at the heart of the emerging phenomena and talents. Because it is about capturing, through the world, a vital dynamics which has never stopped influencing and shaping our societies. Seven reasons to hope, which summarize dozens of interviews, of meetings with intellectual or artistic personalities, famous or unknown and of many readings.

The reflection of the consulting firm Louvre Alliance goes beyond the simple compilation of interviews and readings, to detect the invariant and the levers of the creative renewing, without aiming at concluding, but through outlines. Motivating also, because this ambitions invites to meet creators who embody today’s and tomorrow’s vitality, because it is about tracking down the creative deposits.

I – Hope from the human being: at the point closest to the artist’s soul and gesture, detecting the clues of an unquenchable thirst for creation.

1 – The constant will to create, Eros and Thanatos:

Art is born from both the coexisting and consecutive responses to yes and no, from an affirmation and a refusal and can be found simultaneously and separately in Dionysus and Apollo. There is little chance of the source dying up if affirmation and refusal are used, if they are combined and relaying each other. 

2 – Creative practices, horizon of expectations:

Whether solar or disputing, human creation is spread through a practice that is not necessarily that of the making of a work of art. Amateur artists are making a come-back in reaction to the forces of production-consumption.

3 – Experiments and the involvement of the eye:

The society of images is not always what we think it is, it is also the storage space of the shapes that leads us to ponder the world. Let’s be assured that what we see is mirrored by what is looking back at us.

II – Hope from the shapes: in constant evolution, we have to illustrate how the constraints of shape are nothing more than a stimulus for tomorrow’s creations.

4 – From hybridization to montage:

From interdisciplinarity to undisciplinarity, creative hybridization appears through the densification of the shapes and extensively through a work of montage between before and now, between here and somewhere else.

5 – Beyond the digital, the immanence of shapes:

The digital make us think about the hand but the shapes invented by the technology will exceed their uses.

III – Hope from the world: the deep movements on the face of the Earth can’t ignore the impact they will have on arts and culture.

6 – Global constraints and the shift of symbols

The artist retrains himself by setting the limits of his own exercise.

7 – Network empathy and politics of the mind

Transnationality, the networking phenomenon and social aspirations have already brought forth some new collective forces in the world which are both ever changing and free from hierarchy. Politics of the mind won’t be born from the will of a single political chief.

As a kick-off for the three days of the Forum. Louvre Alliance reminds us that creation needs interstices.

Of course, these proposals will be debated and questioned by the 450 artists, entrepreneurs, students, investors, public decision makers, representing 40 nationalities gathered during the Forum d’Avignon.

Talking about culture, debating and showing it. Every year, the Forum d’Avignon listens to artists and creators. During the year, artists are pillars of the think tank through their reflections and creations, at the heart of the exchanges where they are always active, like the orchestra conductors Zahia Ziouani, Eduardo Browne and Itay Talgam, the violinist Renaud Capuçon, the singer Barbara Hendricks, the cartoonists from Cartooning for Peace Liza Donnelly, Michel Kichka, Ali Dilem and Nadia Khiari, the filmmakers Amos Gitaï, Nabil Ayouch and Jim Sheridan, the architects Paul Andreu, Kjetil Traedel Thorsen and Franklin Azzi, the plastic artists Mircea Cantor, Hermann Vaske, Julien Levesque, Barthélémy Toguo … Their performances also have the place of honour, for the fifth edition, the Lab of the Forum d’Avignon – the meetings of culture and technology – highlights Candide, in a 2.0 version from Orange and the French National Library; the cellist Peter Gregson who, from tweets, composes a symphony; the orchestra conductor Itay Talgam who talks with humor about control; Christian Horz from Bertelsmann leads us to the cloud and 3DS and Michel L’Hour and Mehdi Tayoubi from make us discover the vessel of the King Louis XIV. If artists are very present during the Forum, there are also businessmen (Stéphane Richard, CEO of France Telecom-Orange, Rick Cotton, VP NBCUniversal, Carlo d’Asaro Biondo, VP de Google...), politicians from many countries (Aurélie Filippetti, Joakim Stymne-Sweden…), philosophers (Régis Debray, Richard David Precht).

The Palais des Papes and the Conclave room will also hear the violinist Renaud Capuçon and the pianist Anne Pagès-Boisset, the magic voice of the counter-tenor Fabrice Di Falco, the fabulous universe of the art historian Hector Obalk, the choreographer Kitsou Dubois, the plastic artist Mircea Cantor, or the poetess Tishani Doshi with the composer Markus Schmidt… The concert of Etienne de Crécy in the Opéra Théâtre of Avignon completes the relationship between the Forum and the city, a sign of friendship (the concert is free) and to thank for its welcome and support.

Laure Kaltenbach, managing director, Olivier Le Guay, editorial manager – Forum d’Avignon.

The Forum d’Avignon thanks Louvre Alliance for the quality of their study, available on the website of the Forum d’Avignon. The debates are broadcasted on internet http://forum-avignon.org/en.