Originally in French, Gustave Affeulpin’s The so-called utopia of the centre beaubourg (1976) is a fictional report on the construction and operations of an art center underneath the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, France. Built in tandem with the museum that is internationally known as the “Pompidou”—native Parisians mostly refer to it simply as “Beaubourg”—the underground center that Affeulpin describes is not a copy but a double. Decidedly, not mimicking. Instead, co-existing. To present culture in its most incisive form, the infrastructure and organizing principles of this, the other center, must be collectively decided upon its public and its program progressively unfold in time, at the vision and inertia, so to say, of its constituents. Affeulpin uses the pseudonym “Albert Meister” to write a piece of fiction as a documentary account. The book is a vivid report on the life of a cultural place, and the inner-workings and mostly failings of an endeavor closer to a utopia blueprint than a concrete place.

The English translation of The so-called utopia of the centre beaubourg, this version subtitled with the tag-line “An Interpretation,” was done by visual artist Luca Frei. Luca’s version includes notes and images, in-between lines and as illustrations, on the construction of the Pompidou and the first publication of Affeulpin’s book. And, as the subtitle he tags on to the original suggests, his is not a straight transliteration of a text from one language to another. The published work claims to be a new work. Intentionality here is crucial. While the book remains a work by Affeulpin, its current manifestation—in English, in print, in distribution and discussion—is made by Luca, highlighting while raising a bit of speculation around appropriation, literary, and citationality, literally.

The so-called utopia of the centre beaubourg - An interpretation was co-published in 2007 by Book Works and CASCO, Office for Art, Theory and Design, Utrecht. The video here documents Luca Frei reading selected passages in the book, a program held on September 18, 2008 in conjunction to the Archaeology of Longing at Kadist Art Foundation in Paris.

When I asked him to talk about André Breton’s 1946 lecture in Haiti, the 83-year old Gérald Bloncourt said that he couldn’t exactly recall the details. “I was busy,” he added, “and preoccupied, carrying a gun in my pocket and guarding my friend Jacques Stephan Alexis, whose task that day was assassinating Lescot.”

Considered more a dictator than simply president, Elie Lescot was among those listening to Breton speak about surrealism. Pierre Mabille had organized that conference. And that Lescot was in the audience was not by chance. It was somewhat of a political affair. A surrealist himself and also a practicing doctor, Mabille was the French cultural attaché in Haiti. This was one of a series of conferences by Breton before his return to France, where he had fled from during World War II. Anyway, the plans to assassinate Lescot that day failed, and the young Haitian poets in charge of it escaped. Mabille, who was friendly with Stephan Alexis and Bloncourt arranged their protection, and immediately after brokered Bloncourt’s political exile in France.

This summer, when I arrived to the doorsteps of Gérald Bloncourt’s home in Paris, he knew I wanted to speak with him about something related. In articles describing that lecture, Breton’s presentation was figured as a catalyst to the revolution that ensued immediately after. His speech had been published immediately after in La Ruche, a Haitian newspaper edited by the poet Rene Depestre among others. At the government confiscation of that La Ruche issue and the imprisonment of its editors, what began as student protests ended in a larger demonstrations that led to the exile of many intellectuals.

It was actually while initially investigating the historic artist’s studio La Ruche in Montparnasse that I learned about the newspaper La Ruche. Things fell into place right after that. Gérald Bloncourt had just co-authored with Michael Löwy, Messagers de la Tempête. André Breton et la Révolution de janvier 1946 en Haïti (2007) a book published by Les Temps des Cerises in Paris—a copy of which I kindly obtained through the artist collective Société Réaliste. Having dealt with other types of doubles in the Archaeology of Longing, I invited Bloncourt to narrate the events surrounding that Breton lecture. Afterwards, he also read some of his poetry. This video is a recording of his talk, which was celebrated on the evening of September 18, 2008 in Paris.

Today, forty-five years ago, musician John Cale performed Erik Satie’s Vexations once in the television program “I’ve Got a Secret,” a weekly show of CBS Television in America. This happened only a couple of days after the legendary performance of Vexations organized by John Cage. That concert lasted 18 hours and 40 minutes, and was groundbreaking. To date, it is considered to be the first public-complete performance of Satie’s composition. Cale was one of ten painists playing that night (the concert began on September 9, 1963). A couple of days later, The New York Times covered the performance with a diary-like report and documentary images almost taking the entire front page of the paper. The Paris-based Satie specialist, Ornella Volta, who directs the Archives Erik Satie, is currently working on a catalogue raisonné of Vexations performances. Among the several she has pointed out during informal conversations held over the course of this summer is the one in 1979 by Canadian artist Rober Racine. The abacus-like counter that Racine used in his performance to keep track of the 840 repetitions of this composition is included in the exhibition Archaeology of Longing.

For the last couple of months, I’ve been in residency at Kadist Art Foundation in Paris, France. This is a private foundation initiated in 2001, which has been forming a collection of contemporary art, and organizing exhibitions and residencies. I am curating their upcoming exhibition, Archaeology of Longing (Archéologie de la Chine), which takes place at Kadist’s gallery from September 19-November 9, 2008.

With a title drawn from a short story by Susan Sontag, Archaeology of Longing is an exhibition bringing together a number of artworks, artifacts, and common objects. It begins as an investigation into disenchantment, soon digressing through the historical flatlands of interpretation and substitution. Far from melancholic, and closer to what can be described as politically intimate, the exhibition is an inventory of that journey.

Archaeology of Longing includes artwork by Alejandro Cesarco, Luca Frei, Emma Hedditch, Bethan Huws, Fabio Kacero, Rober Racine, Kay Rosen, Kateřina Šedá, Joe Scanlan and Lisa Tan; artifacts and objects on loan by several contributors, including Tania Bruguera and Archives Erik Satie; and exhibition furniture designed by Tomás Alonso. A series of events will take place as part of the exhibition. On the evening of September 18th at the garden of the Musée de Montmartre in Paris, Emma Hedditch performs a new work and Luca Frei makes a reading of his artist’s book, The So-called Utopia of the Centre Beaubourg - an Interpretation. On the night of November 1st, Lars Svendsen gives a lecture on his Philosophy of Boredom at Kadist Art Foundation.

A collection of findings uncovered during this archaeology of longing is also available as a publication titled 84 handkerchiefs, an umbrella and some books.

Image: Lisa Tan, Hotel Principal Towels, 2008, C-print, 76.2 x 101.6 cm. Courtesy the artist and D’Amelio Terras, New York.