On the occasion of the 40th anniversary, renowned Parisian gallery Chantal Crousel presents the publication Swear That You’ll Play, looking back at the long history of the gallery. Published by Is-Land Édition and designed by Dune Lunel studio, the publication offers seven hundred pages and goes through a period of nearly four decades.
Considered as a major actor in the contemporary art scene, both in France and abroad, Galerie Chantal Crousel has been introducing artists from every part of the world to the international collectors and institutions.
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Born in Belgium, Chantal Crousel came to Paris in 1972, where she founded the eponymous gallery in 1980 at 80 rue Quicincampoix. Since then, she has been unveiling artists of diverse origin to the international art world of collectors and institutions.
In its early years, the artistic orientation of the gallery was marked by a new generation of artists from European and American art movements that were new in the late 1970s, including Tony Cragg, Gilbert & George or Cindy Sherman. Chantal Crousel was the first in France to exhibit the works of Gabriel Orozco, Mona Hatoum, Absalon, Melik Ohanian or Rirkrit Tiravanija.
Today directed by Crousel’s son, Niklas Svennung, the gallery is located on rue Charlot since 2005. The gallery confirms its commitment to an artistic dialogue, equally poetic and conscious, by representing artists, both young and established, who often question the social space by employing new forms to explore innovative ideas.
The true pleasure of playing is not to win, but to invent new rules. To cross borders, and with each step discover a center of the world.
– Chantal Crouse
Today, the Galerie Chantal Crousel is representing 33 artists, both young and established. At the intersection of several mediums like sculpture, installation, film or music, the artists work on their close context – Abraham Cruzvillegas, Jean-Luc Moulène, Reena Spaulings, Wolfgang Tillmans, Haegue Yang, they question the representation and the status of images – Roberto Cuoghi, Michael Krebber, Moshe Ninio, Wade Guyton, Seth Price, Clément Rodzielski, Willem De Rooij, Sean Snyder, Haegue Yang, Pierre Huyghe, they confront social space – Thomas Hirschhorn, Fabrice Gygi, Oscar Tuazon, language David Douard, Glenn Ligon, Hassan Khan, Heimo Zobernig, Rirkrit Tiravanija, or historical, cultural and biographical heritage – Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla, Fikret Atay, Tarek Atoui, Mona Hatoum, Melik Ohanian, Gabriel Orozco, Danh Võ, Wang Bing.
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The book opens with a double interview of more than one hundred pages, conducted by Philippe Vergne, director of the Serralves Foundation in Porto, with Chantal Crousel, and with Niklas Svennung. Both talk about their conception of a gallerist’s work, their critical commitments, and their admiration for the artists they work with.
The discussions are followed by a vast collection of images which features a very large part of the exhibitions that have taken place at Galerie Chantal Crousel.
The readers will have a clear vision of this historic gallery’s evolution, and be familiar with the various shapes and spaces the gallery has known. The book is describing the creation of a gallery, the creation of several visions, that of a long exhibition, thus reaffirming the place of the gallerist’s work in the recent history of art.
Keep up with Galerie Chantal Crousel – www.crousel.com
