As part of the Cross season France-Portugal 2022, Foco Gallery is pleased to present ENIGMA, a video-photo installation by French visual artist avant-garde filmmaker Pierre Coulibeuf. 

With the participation of performers Vânia Rovisco, Andresa Soares and opera singer Véronique Nosbaum. 
Curated by Ana Rito and Hugo Barata.

ENIGMA is a transmedia work conceived with three points of support: urban places, performances, an opera song. Historical and contemporary places in Luxembourg, the actions-performances of two young women who “interpret” these places, a “song of the Sirens” which inhabits the places but also the bodies of the actresses-performers. The performance triggered by the encounter with the place is a secret language that we must decrypt and translate.

This artistic project is materialized within the gallery by a video-photo installation composed of 4 moving images and a series of 12 photographs. It is created from the elements of the film, deconstructed and reinterpreted in order to produce a spatial device with the exhibition space itself.

Project partners: Galeria Foco, Lisbon (Portugal), Regards Productions (Paris), Institut Français du Luxembourg, Centre Culturel de Rencontre Abbaye de Neumünster, CNC-Centre National du Cinéma (Paris), Vosges TV, Camões – Centre Culturel Portugais Luxembourg, Association Victor Hugo, Mudam Luxembourg-Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Musée Dräi Eechelen Luxembourg

Creation within the context of the neimënster Residencies
Creation within the context of the France-Portugal 2022 Cross Season

Pierre Coulibeuf — Biographical note

Visual artist and avant-garde filmmaker. Born in Elbeuf (France), in 1949. Lives in Paris. Literary studies (Postgraduate diploma and thesis). Knight of the Arts and Literature’s Order, France (2001).

Pierre Coulibeuf is developing a transdisciplinary project: he produces experimental fictions (on analog film) which invest the field of art and where changes of identity affect the universes as well as the artists inspiring his works. His films are presented both at the cinema and, recomposed, in the form of video-photo installation in the international network of contemporary art. Coulibeuf’s works art part of main public and private collections in the world.
In 2013, his exhibition at YUAN Space, in Beijing, was selected for the Award of Art China / AAC, in the category of the most influential foreign artists in China (with Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, Araki, Shirin Neshat). In 2019, he won the Résidences Sur Mesure of the French Institute in Paris (Visual arts).

EXHIBITIONS (selection)

Solo exhibitions:
Galeria Foco, Lisbon, Portugal, 2022. Russian Museum-Marble Palace, St. Petersburg, Russia, 2019. Reykjavik Art Museum, Iceland, 2017. Times Museum, Guangzhou, China, 2015. Musée d’Art Roger-Quilliot, Clermont-Ferrand, France, 2013. Yuan Space, Beijing, China, 2013. Museum of Contemporary Art, Perm, Russia, 2011. Museum of Contemporary Art/MOCA, Chengdu, China, 2012. Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon, Portugal, 2010. La Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain, 2010. Fundação Iberê Camargo, Porto Alegre, Brazil, 2009. Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain, Saint-Etienne, France, 2009. Deichtorhallen-Haus der Photographie, Hamburg, Germany, 2006.

Group exhibitions:
Museu Coleção Berardo, Portugal, 2021. EMOP/European Month of Photography, Luxembourg, 2019. Haus der Kunst, München, Germany, 2012. Museum of Contemporary Art, Herzliya, Israël, 2011. 1st Ural Contemporary Art Bienniale, Yekaterinburg, Russia, 2010. 5th Mercosul International Bienniale of Contemporary Art, Brazil, 2005.

COLLECTIONS (selection):

National Museum of Modern Art/Centre Pompidou, Paris, France. MAM de Paris, Museum of Modern Art in Paris, France. National Fund for Contemporary Art/Cnap, Paris. Sammlung Goetz Munich, Germany. Iberê Camargo Foundation, Porto Alegre, Brazil. Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea/GAM, Torino, Italy. Neuer Berliner Kunstverein/NBK, Berlin, Germany. Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon, Portugal. Museu de Artes do Rio Grande do Sul/MARGS, Porto Alegre, Brazil. Regional Collections of Contemporary Art of Brittany/FRAC, Rennes, France. Reykjavik Art Museum, Reykjavik, Iceland.