Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens’ art practice investigates the ways in which the economic sciences and the theories of management represent the world. Taking an approach that is both conceptual and pragmatic, grounded in a process of research and relying on the subversion of ordinary experience, the duo seeks to disclose and disarm the influence of neoliberalism’s ideology on the most private facets of our lives. The notion of work, seen through the lens of its recent transformations, is central to Ibghy & Lemmens’ approach, as it embodies what Michel Foucault defined as biopower; that is, the capacity of economic thought to control, direct and orient the life of human beings.1
This exhibition of works produced since 2009 explores the critical relationship between the artists’ practice and the internalization of the logic of productivity. The works examine the ways in which the injunction to perform affects the body—actions, thought, attitudes, language—from the point of view of work and life, two spheres that tend to be conflated within a model that many researchers refer to as “cognitive capitalism”.2 The works underline the physiological, subjective and cognitive dimensions of the body and is a central element in the artists’ critical stance against neoliberalism’s ideology. Due to its physical boundaries, as well as the important social and affective components of human activity, the body cannot be reduced to economic models and to the logic of growth, both of which increasingly determine its conditions for existing. Thus, the works of Ibghy & Lemmens define the body, both as the site where the mechanisms of productivity are realized and as an agent of their disabling.
Véronique Leblanc, curator
Read more- Christina Morini and Andrea Fumagalli, Life Put to work: Towards a Life Theory of Value, trans. Emanuele Leonardi, Ephemera, Theory and Politics in Organization 10 (3/4), 2010: 234-252. While it does not directly reference this work, the title of the exhibition takes up a central concept of the definition of cognitive capitalism, whereby neoliberalist ideology exerts control over our lives, deriving profit from them beyond the mere sphere of labour.
- The cognitive capitalism model is characterized among other things by the shifting of the objectives of labour from production of merchandise to production of “immaterial” knowledge, via a new organization of labour based on use of information technology and communications, and via blurring of the distinction between “work-time” and “life-time”. See, among others, Fumagalli, Life Put to Work.; Christian Azaïs, Antonella Corsani and Patrick Dieuaide, eds., Vers un capitalisme cognitive (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2001); Multitudes – Capitalisme cognitif, 1/2008 (No. 32).
EXPLORE
- To what extent do you recognize internalized neoliberalism in your life? In your concept and use of time? In the structure of your day? In your desire of efficiency or optimization?
- Ibghy and Lemmens contend that capitalism assumes endless growth. How is this endless potential for expansion suggested through their aesthetic choices?
- How does the format and content of Ibghy and Lemmens’ work suggest ironic complicity with neoliberal ideals? To what extent do the artists use humour to reveal the absurdity in capitalist structures of power?
- In Real failure needs no excuse and Is there anything left to be done at all? the artists perform actions that are not guided by the goal of productivity. Rather, the artists explore alternative ways of working that are centered on the desire to make. Can you imagine work where the process is the only goal? Can you think of an example of this kind of work? What would be the purpose of this work?
The complete essay written by the exhibition curator Véronique Leblanc can be viewed and downloaded in the Texts and Documents section. A printed version is also available at the Gallery.
The artists would like to thank Trinity Square Video, Images Festival, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Curator
Véronique Leblanc is a Montreal-based independent curator and writer. She is interested in context-, process- and relational-based practices as they intersect with art, ethics and politics. In her analysis of performative and collaborative practices, she addresses issues related to alterity and the commons in the context of globalization. She was awarded the 2015 Prix John R. Porter from the Fondation du Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec for her essays on artists Emmanuelle Léonard et Artur Żmijewski. Her articles and essays have been published in magazines and exhibition catalogues. She has an MA in art history from the Université du Québec à Montréal, where she also lectures.
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Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens have developed a collaborative practice that combines a concise approach to the form and construction of the art object with a desire to make ideas visible. Spanning across multiple media, including video, performance, sculpture and installation, their work explores the material, affective and sensory dimensions of experience that cannot be fully translated into signs or systems. For several years, they have examined the rationale upon which economic actions are described and represented, and how the logic of economy has come to infiltrate the most intimate aspects of life.
Ibghy & Lemmens’ work has been shown at the 14th Istanbul Biennial (Istanbul, Turkey, 2015), La Biennale de Montréal (Montreal, Canada, 2014), the 27th Images Festival (Toronto, Canada, 2014), Manif d’art 7: Quebec City Biennial (Quebec City, Canada, 2014), La Filature, Scène Nationale (Mulhouse, France, 2013-14), Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (Høvikodden, Norway, 2013), Centre for Contemporary Arts (Glasgow, Scotland, 2012) and the 10th Sharjah Biennial (Sharjah, UAE, 2011). Recent and solo exhibitions include VOX, Centre de l’image contemporaine (Montreal, 2014), Trinity Square Video (Toronto, 2014), La Bande Vidéo (Québec, 2014), Monte Vista Projects (Los Angeles, USA, 2012) and G Gallery (Toronto, 2012). Their projects and writings have been published by Sternberg Press, Le Merle, C-magazine, New Social Inquiry, and Pyramid Power. They have published two artist’s books Tools that Measure the Intensity of Passionate Interests (2012) and Spaces of Observation (2012). Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens live and work in Montreal and Durham-Sud, Canada.
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Diagrams Concerning the Representation of Human Time, 2009
Silkscreens on paper
55,9 x 55,9 cm
Courtesy of the artists
Diagrams Concerning the Representation of Human Time is a study that explores the visual possibilities for the representation of human temporality in the economic sciences. Because their ideal of scientific legitimacy is inspired by Newtonian physics, economists depict time as a unidirectional, irreversible line—a one-way street. This practice, however useful it may be in measuring the evolution of production and consumption, as well as to represent a basic unit of labour, fails to take into account time’s more critical phenomenological characteristics: the centrality of the present as an actual now; the primacy of the future as the main orientation of human desire; and the capacity to recollect the past in the present.
In response to these distortions of perspective, Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens have devised a series of visual experiments that combine established methods of representation in the sciences with those found in literature and the graphic arts—disciplines with a greater engagement with complex representations and expressions of temporality. To this end, a Cartesian coordinate system is employed to bring together the narrative function within the experience of time.
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Each Number Equals One Inhalation and One Exhalation, 2016
Installation, mixed media
Variable dimensions
Courtesy of the Artists
Each Number Equals One Inhalation and One Exhalation is a series of small sculptures that materialize graphical representations concerning human productivity from the mid-nineteenth century to the present in a wide range of disciplines, including work science, scientific management, economics and psychology.
In the diagrams, labour is analysed and broken down into units, while new methods for the management of time, communication and workflows are sketched. Some of the diagrams characterize early twentieth century attempts to visualize the movement of working bodies to improve factory processes while others present data concerning the impact of a number of technological, psychological and organizational factors on efficiency.
In the piece, the artists employ a variety of simple techniques to playfully contrast the handmade models with the authoritative dimension of the original diagrams. Through these operations, they explore the means by which graphical representations transform complex ideas about human labour into systematised forms, including the relationship that exists between the diagrammatic and mental space, which is to say, how diagrams create forms of thought.
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Is there anything left to be done at all?, 2014 / 2016
Multi-channel video installation, sound and mixed media
Variable dimensions
Courtesy of the artists
In 2014, we were invited to undertake a residency at Trinity Square Video in Toronto. Because the residency was dedicated to art production, we asked ourselves if it was possible to embrace the non-productive without depriving ourselves of the potential to act.
As artistic practices are increasingly complicit with high-performance culture in contemporary labour regimes, we wanted to explore what would remain of the desire to act if the compulsion to produce for the sake of productivity were suspended. After breaking the links that bind intention with realization, effort with reward, we wanted to see what—if anything—there is left to do.
To explore these questions, we invited four artists—Justine A. Chambers, Rodrigo Martí, Kevin Rodgers, and Ryan Tong —to the gallery to workshop the generative potential of unproductive action and expenditure in creative labour. By suspending the expectation to produce something for someone or for something, we encouraged our collaborators to engage with the desires that drive their creative practice without being oriented towards any specific purpose.
The installation consists of selected fragments from the video recordings made during these explorations as well as sculptural elements that reflect the material and spatial arrangements that emerged during this process.
Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens
Durham-Sud, 23 January 2016
This text is part of the installation Is there anything left to be done at all ?
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Real Failure Needs No Excuse, 2012
Single-channel video projection, colour, sound
23 min. 48 sec.
Courtesy of the artists
Consisting of a series of actions filmed in an empty office building in Glasgow, Real failure needs no excuse investigates the transgressive potential of non-productive action and its relation to labour, work and the imagination. The video presents continuous flows of actions in which materials are ordered, piled, and assembled in various configurations. Precariously balanced structures, visible for only a short time, collapse (because everything, eventually, collapses) to make way for new shapes and arrangements.
The relentless flow of action in the video parallels the motion of capitalist expansion that always demands more and more work. Yet, if we can think of the performer’s actions as a kind of labour, then it is one that postpones indefinitely an end result. In its constant stream of action, it remains forever in the realm of the making where nothing ever gets made; in the realm of production where nothing ever gets produced.
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The Many Ways to Get What You Want, 2011 / 2016
Vinyl, latex paint
1250 x 401 cm
Courtesy of the artists
Between conceptual writing and poetic expression, The Many Ways to Get What You Want takes as a starting point the beliefs and desires as well the affective impressions that participate in the processes of economic valorisation. Inspired by the lyrics to the Sex Pistols song Anarchy in the UK (Don’t know what I want/But I know how to get it), the piece consists of a large wall mural, which explores the capacity to know one’s desires and to satisfy them through a collection of brief texts plotted within a diagrammatic form.
The piece adopts a BCG (Boston Consulting Group) growth-share matrix (an analytical tool in brand marketing, product management and portfolio analysis) to question and expand the notion of what may or may not be considered as economic behaviour. Functioning as a speculative measuring device, the work suggests various correlations between two variables; in this case the degree to which you “know what you want” and you “know how to get it.”
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Visions of a Sleepless World, 2014 / 2015
Two channel video installation, 16 min. 21 sec. and 1 min. 56 sec.
Variable dimensions
Courtesy of the artists
Visions of a Sleepless World presents the result of a fictitious commission from a pharmaceutical company to produce an educational video about the neurocognitive effects of wakefulness-promoting drugs. Through a staging of the effects of sleep deprivation on the perception of time, memory and cognition, the video focuses on the organic limits of the body, investigating the notion of sleep as a manageable biological function, its relation to cognitive labour and the goal of non-stop productivity.
The idea for the piece is inspired by a film produced by the Belgian-born French writer Henri Michaux in 1963 on the hallucinogenic effects of mescaline and hashish for the Swiss pharmaceutical company Sandoz.
With the collaboration of Andrea Saemann
CloseADDITIONAL SOURCES OF INFORMATION
Web site: ibghylemmens.com
Books & Exhibition Catalogues
CHRISTOF-BAKARGIEV, Carolyn, Saltwater: A Theory of Thought Forms – 14th Istanbul Biennial, ed Süreyyya Evren (Istanbul: Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts and Yapi Kredi Publications, 2015), 231.
FORTIN, Sylvie ed., L’avenir = (Looking Forward): BNL MTL 2014 (Montreal: Biennale de Montréal and the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, 2015).
CHAINEY GAGNON, Vicky and LÉGER, Marc James, eds., Resistance – And Then, We Built New Forms (Quebec City: Manif d’Art, 2014).
HOEGSBERG, Milena, and FISHER, Cora, eds., Living Labour (Høvikodden: Henie Onstad Kunstsenter and Berlin/New York: Sternberg Press, 2013).
BELMORE, Michael, Peter Pete Systems: A Post-Fordist Love Story (Whitby: Station Gallery, 2011).
SAADAWI, Ghalya, ed., Plot for a Biennial: Sharjah Biennial 10 (Sharjah: Sharjah Art Foundation, 2011).
CULEN, Lubos, Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens: Horse and Sparrow (Vernon: Vernon Public Art Gallery, 2010).
PARK, Liz, What Moves Us (Vancouver: Western Front, Media Arts, 2009).
KELLEY, Gemmy, ed., It’s a Wonderful Life (Sackville: Owens Art Gallery, Mount Allison University, 2008).
Essays and Press Articles (selection)
MAGDY, Basim, “The Artists’ Artists: Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens, The Golden USB,” Artforum, December 2015: 112. Link
McGARRY, Kevin, “14th Istanbul Biennial”, Artforum, December 2015: 252-253. Link
PATEL, Alpesh, “Gathering Gossip and Parsing Truth at the Istanbul Biennial”, Hyperallergic, October 27, 2015. Link
SCHELLENBERG, Samuel, “Entre Deux Rives”, Le Courrier, October 17, 2015. Link
GARDEN-SMITH, Shannon, “Ways Out from Inside”, Breach, Issue 2, 2015. Link
VOLK, Gregory, “Matter that Really Matters”, Art in America, September 28, 2015. Link
MASTERS, HG, “Field Trip: Istanbul Biennial – ‘Saltwater’”, ArtAsiaPacific, September 9, 2015.
BENNES, Crystal, “The Best of the Istanbul Biennial”, Apollo Magazine, September 7, 2015. Link
KIRBY, Jane and PARKER, David, “Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens”, Syphon, Volume 3, Issue I (Spring 2015).
CAMPBELL, James D, “The Montréal Biennale: “L’avenir (looking forward)”,” Border Crossings, 34:1 (March, April, May 2015): 113-116.
CUMMINS, Louis, “BNLMTL 2014 : L’avenir (looking forward) : Geopolitics and Institutional Strategies”, Ciel Variable, no. 100 (Spring-Summer 2015) : 48-53.
DOMINO, Christophe, “Biennale d’art contemporain, Montréal ”, trans. L.-S. Torgoff, artpress, no. 420 (March 2015) : 16-17. Link
McLAUGHLIN, Bryne, “7 Shows We Want to See this Spring”, Canadian Art, April 17, 2015. Link
TOUSLEY, Nancy, “Canada’s Biennale: Montreal’s Star-Making Machine”, Canadian Art 32, no. 11 (Spring 2015): 84-93. Link
VOLK, Gregory, “Montreal Biennale”, Art in America, January, 2015. Link
TWERDY, Saelan, “Saelan Twerdy’s Top 3 of 2014: Shifting Landscapes”, Canadian Art, December 22, 2014. Link
RAMADE, Bénédicte, “Quand l’avenir s’impatiente”, Le journal des arts, n° 423, November 14 2014. Link
TWERDY, Saelan, “Future Forecast: The Montreal Biennale 2014”, Momus, November 10, 2014. Link
VALI, Murtaza, “Revamped Montreal Biennial Looks to the Future, in More Ways than One”, Art in America, November 7, 2014. Link
WESLEY, Susannah, Jaqueline Hoang Nguyen, Brian Jungen & Duane Linklater, and Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens at Vox”, Akimboblog, September 16, 2014. Link
HOEKSTRA, Aryen, “Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens: Is there anything left to be done at all?”, C Magazine, No.123, Fall, 2014, 51-52. Link
LEBLANC, Véronique, “Manif d’art 7, Résistance. Et puis, nous avons construit de nouvelles formes”, Ciel Variable, no. 98 (Autumn 2014) : 85-86.
MURCHIE, John, “Arranging pebbles in a certain way”, Centre VOX, Montreal, September, 2014. Link
DELGADO, Jérôme, “Les objets du monde”, Le Devoir, Montreal, September 20, 2014. Link
COOLEY, Alison, “Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens on Non-Doing in Art”, Canadian Art, May 14, 2014. Link
NORDBY WERNØ, Johanne, “Arbeidstid”, Artforum, September 2013: 430. Link
HOEGSBERG, Milena, “If Not Workers, Who Would We Be?” Living Labor, Milena Hoegsberg, and Cora Fisher (eds.), Høvikodden, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter and Berlin/New York, Sternberg Press, 2013. p 47 – 58.
EIELSEN, Marte, “Kapitalismens limtube”, Klassekampen, Oslo, Norway, May 23, 2013.
HORVEI, Maria, “Hva skjedde med ni til fem?” Kunstkritikk, Norway, May 22, 2013.
BLOM, Ina, “Arbeidstid”, Artforum, May 2013. p 179.
RØED, Kjetil, “Beyond the work”, Kunstkritikk, International Edition, June 27, 2013.
GINSON, Mandy, “The Space of Observation,” The Space of Observation, Vancouver, 221A, 2012.
HIRSCH, Antonia, “Copernican Skies”, The Lights constellating one’s internal sky, Richmond, Richmond Art Gallery, 2011. Link
BELMORE, Michael, “The Problem with Peeling Potatoes”, Peter Pete Systems: A Post-Fordist Love Story, Whitby, Station Gallery, 2011. Link
HUGHES, Isabella E., “Sharjah Biennial 10”, ArtAsiaPacific, 73 (May-June) 2011. Link
BATTISTA, Kathy, “Sharjah Biennial 10”, Art Monthly, 346 (May) 2011. Link
MURCHIE, John, “Stop, Look, & Listen. See What You Think”, Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens: Horse and Sparrow, Vernon, Vernon Public Art Gallery, 2010. Link
PARK, Liz, “What Moves Us: Moving Images, Bodies, Territories”, What Moves Us, Vancouver, Western Front Media Arts, 2009. Link
HOPKINS, Candice, “All that you remember”, Green, Vancouver, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery and the University of British Columbia, 2007. Link
ClosePublished Writings
IBGHY, Richard & LEMMENS, Marilou, “Our Last Greatest Hope,” in L’Avenir = (Looking Forward): BNL MTL 2014, edited by Sylvie Fortin (Montreal: Biennale de Montréal and the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art, 2015) 204-109.
IBGHY, Richard & LEMMENS, Marilou, Tools that measure the intensity of passionate interests (Durham-Sud: Horse and Sparrow Editions, 2012).
IBGHY, Richard & LEMMENS, Marilou, Spaces of Observation (Vancouver: 221A artist-run-centre, 2012).
IBGHY, Richard & LEMMENS, Marilou, “The Geometry of Chance.” Le Merle: Cahiers sur les mots et les actes, vol. 1, no. 1 (Spring 2012): p 29-38.
IBGHY, Richard & LEMMENS, Marilou, “Beyond the Grave and Into the Future,” in Plot for a Biennial: Sharjah Biennial 10 ed: Ghalya Saadawi (Sharjah: Sharjah Art Foundation, 2011): 135-136.
IBGHY, Richard & LEMMENS, Marilou, “Economies of Faith.” C Magazine, 108 (Winter 2010): 4-13.
IBGHY, Richard & LEMMENS, Marilou, “Diagrams Concerning the Representation of Human Time.” Pyramid Power issue 7 (Spring/Summer 2010): 9-12.
Talks and Interviews Online
“Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens, in conversation with Kate Mackay, in conjunction with the 27th Images Festival and the exhibition Is there anything left to be done at all? ” interview with Kate Mackay. Presented at Trinity Square Gallery, Toronto, April 16th, 2014. Link
IBGHY, Richard & LEMMENS, Marilou, “Our Last Greatest Hope” (lecture, Programme ICI: Intervenant Culturels Internationaux, Faculty of Arts, School of Visual and Media Arts, UQAM, Montreal, Canada, November 2014). Link
“Video Interviews: Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens: The Golden USB” interview by VOX, centre de l’image contemporaine, Montreal, Canada, 2014. Link
“Video Interviews with Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens, Hito Steyerl and Nicolas Grenier” La Biennale de Montréal : BNLMTL 2014, L’avenir (looking forward) — 3 of 4. La Fabrique Culturelle.tv, 2014. Link
“Arbeidstid (Work Time): Video Interview with Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens” Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Høvikodden, Norway, 2013. Link
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