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Cécile Bethléem



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Monday, October 12, 2009 
>> Exposition " Rhizome " Avec Cécile Bethléem / Harold Guérin

du 17 octobre au 15 novembre
Ouvert les week-ends de 14h à 17h

Maison vide et le Jardinet présentent Rhizome
À l'espace Maison vide
1 Rue Mannot 51100 Crugny
Maison Vide



Articles et Communiqué de presse
>> Exposition " Rhizome " Avec Cécile Bethléem / Harold Guérin http://haroldguerin.com/


Articles :
www.lunion.presse.fr
www.lhebdoduvendredi.com


Communiqué de presse

À l’invitation de " Maison Vide ", les artistes Cécile Bethléem et Harold Guérin ont conçu un ensemble d’œuvres inédites aussi hétérogène que cohérent.

L’exposition " Rhizome " investit l'espace d'une maison vide où les deux artistes se nourrissent et transforment, en multipliant les points de vue, la nature même du lieu.Chacun procède par variation, expansion, conquête et capture de cet espace.
Le titre porte le nom donné à la tige souterraine de certaines plantes vivaces mais aussi du concept philosophique de Gilles Deleuze et Félix Guattari dans leur ouvrage Mille Plateaux (Paris, Edition de Minuit, 1980).
La maison devient un milieu par lequel poussent et débordent les œuvres, évoluant comme une multitude de lignes qui s'entrecroisent et se décroisent créant interférence, superposition, développement et déterritorialisation…

A travers ses réalisations, Cécile Bethléem crée des liens surprenants, autant formels que poétiques, où le lieu " maison " devient aussi bien le récepteur que l'émetteur du temps et de l’espace.
Harold Guérin s'approprie et transforme son architecture, prenant comme trame la structure même de la bâtisse. Son œuvre sculpturale connecte et interroge les volumes dans un dispositif multi-sensoriel.

Cécile Bethléem
Née en 1978 à Montmorency, elle vit et travaille à Reims. Diplômée de l’École supérieure d’art et design de Reims. Elle reçoit, en 2007, l’Aide Individuelle à la Création, DRAC Champagne-Ardenne et l’Aide à la Création en Arts Plastiques, O.R.C.C.A. Elle est choisie en 2008, par la ville de Reims, pour un programme d’échange avec Arlington (U.S.A), bénéficie pour cette commande et cette résidence d’une bourse d’Aide individuelle à la création de la Ville de Reims donnant lieu en 2009 à l'exposition " Regards Croisés : Crossing Glances " à la galerie ELLIPSE ART CENTER d'Arlington et à l'Ancien Collège des Jésuites, Reims.

" Son travail questionne ce Un je ne sais quoi : cette sensation étrange d’ambivalence du sujet, d’être simultanément proche et lointain du lieu et donc de lui-même.
Ce temps interstitiel dans lequel la personne est immergée lorsqu’elle se trouve dans un lieu dont l’identité peut se révéler être celle de toute et nulle part, que ce lieu lui soit déjà ou non connu. Il s’agit de créer une véritable confrontation et gémellité des lieux et d’être. Le concept du double donne lieu à d’étranges fissures et glissements créant un vrai trouble de l’identité ".

Harold Guérin
Né à Reims en 1981, il vit et travaille entre Reims et Nancy. Diplômé de l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Art de Nancy, il a notamment étudié à l'académie des Beaux-Arts et du Design de Bratislava en Slovaquie où il intègre l'atelier de communication spatiale. Il participe à Luxembourg 2007 Capitale Européenne de la culture et est actuellement en résidence de médiation au FRAC Champagne-Ardenne. Il expose actuellement au CAC passage à Troyes dans le cadre de l'exposition " L'avenir d'une illusion " avec la collection du FRAC.

" Ma démarche artistique trouve ses origines dans l’observation du paysage. Je multiplie les points de vue afin de percevoir différentes portions de l'espace et d’en interpréter les mutations.
Les éléments tels que l’eau, le sol, la neige conditionnent la construction de mes installations dans leur structure même ; je reconstitue des objets fonctionnels et identifiables qui sont les témoins physiques et tangibles de frontières visibles ou non, concrétisant la séparation de l'espace. La dimension temporelle interroge mon travail et influe la plasticité de mes volumes. Je confronte et hybride les matériaux, instaurant ainsi un dialogue sensible entre eux. Provoquer les objets aux limites de leur structure et de leur construction, les déposséder de leur fonctionnalité propre, leur attribuent un nouveau rôle et leur confèrent le statut de sculpture : vivante, temporelle et vulnérable ".
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Monday, February 16, 2009 

Pour visionner les vidéos cliquez sur les 2 liens / To view the videos click the links 2 :

///Arlington Video Network, click here :
www.youtube.com////
 
//// France3, click here : www.youtube.com////

17:11 
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Sunday, February 01, 2009 
The Washington Post www.washingtonpost.com


'Sisters' Connect Through the Lens

Arlington, it turns out, has "sister" cities. Who knew?

For the past couple of years it has been in a long-distance relationship (we're talking very long distance) with Reims, France. The relationship is closer to dating, really, as it's meant to foster "peaceful discourse, cultural exchange and economic collaboration," according to the Arlington Sister City Association. Sounds like a date to me.

Like a visual "Date Lab," the afterglow from one of those fix-ups is on view at the Ellipse Arts Center.

Called "Crossing Glances/Regards Croisés," the show is a series of his 'n' hers photographs. Half were shot in Reims, over the course of two weeks last spring, by Arlington photographer John Babineau. Half were shot in Arlington, during a concurrent month-long visit by his French counterpart, Cécile Bethléem, of Reims.

You were expecting, maybe, travelogue-style postcards from Babineau, and pictures of the Iwo Jima Memorial from Bethléem? The results may surprise you.

They did Babineau, who says he never expected to find that the two places -- one an American suburb of humble bungalows and high-rises, the other a centuries-old town famous for its Gothic cathedral, where kings were once crowned -- had so much in common. And what is one of the things they have in common?

Backhoes.

You'll see that piece of construction equipment, quite by accident, in both Babineau's and Bethléem's work. He immortalized one next to the cathedral, in a shot called "Contemporary Renewal." She caught another next to a building belonging to George Mason University. All of Bethléem's pictures come from a numbered series called, with a sense of anthropological detachment, "Topology Fragments."

"I was really surprised to see how much construction there was," says Babineau, who also shot the cathedral reflected in the sleek glass facade of a contemporary office building. Those familiar with Arlington may also notice that several of the buildings Bethléem shot, less than a year ago, have been torn down.

Even cities, it seems, don't stand still and smile for the camera.

But "Crossing Glances/Regards Croisés" is not a documentary project. Babineau and Bethléem are artists, not photojournalists. What they bring to their work isn't objectivity but attitude, opinions and, most important, atmosphere.

That's most apparent in Bethléem's work, which evokes a palpable melancholy. One of the first pictures she shot was taken from the window of the hotel she stayed in upon arriving in Arlington. It shows the front of an anonymous building, as seen through the out-of-focus filter of a hotel-room curtain. Through a interpreter, the artist says she can't remember where the hotel was. But as Ellipse curator Cynthia Connolly remarked on opening night, it looks distinctly . . . "Rosslyn-y." Connolly is dead right about that, too. If not geographically, at least aesthetically.

That is to say, the picture has a gray and austere flavor. It's filled with a sense of alienation, if not despair. But in a strangely beautiful way.

Bethléem says she was a little worried about the grayness when she got here. "Is this all that Arlington is?" she recalls thinking. It was only later that she would discover such architectural gems as Ballston's International House of Pancakes, with its distinctive blue roof, or the mid-century modernist charms of the Highlander Motor Inn, near the Virginia Square Metro. With her stranger's eyes, Bethléem caught something about Arlington. It's in the disappearing cottages, some dwarfed by concrete towers. Not just loss, but love.

Yet just as Babineau brought his skepticism about rampant development, along with his luggage, to France, Bethléem didn't just stumble on a hidden reservoir of estrangement and regret in Arlington. That gorgeous sense of something dear slipping away -- you feel it more than see it -- has always permeated her art, she admits.

"J'aime la tristesse," she says. I love sadness.

Crossing Glances/Regards Croisés -- Arlington & Reims: Sister Cities Through March 28 at the Ellipse Arts Center, 4350 Fairfax Dr., Suite 125 (Metro: Ballston-MU) Contact: 703-228-7710. http://www.arlingtonarts.org/ellipseartscenter.htm. Hours:Open Wednesday-Friday 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturdays 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Admission: Free. Program: On March 5 from 7 to 9 p.m., photographer Babineau and Didier Rousselet, who has written an essay for the book of photographs accompanying the show, will discuss the project and sign books. Free.

By Michael O'Sullivan

Updated: Friday, January 30, 2009
12:26 
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Sunday, February 01, 2009 
The Washington Post www.washingtonpost.com

Arlington & Her Sister Share Knowing Looks

After a month of acquainting herself with Arlington, one thing came into focus for French photographer Cécile Bethléem: The city makes for one alluring subject.

Arlington "seems very photogenic," says Bethléem, who was struck by all its straight lines and right angles. Many of her architectural-style photographs from this series look like grids.

Bethléem was in Virginia last May as part of a cultural exchange between Arlington and its sister city of Reims, France. Photographer John Babineau, who lives in Arlington, traveled to Reims (pronounced "Rrrhans" in France), a smallish city in the country's northern Champagne region.

The result of the swap is an exhibition, called "Crossing Glances," that opens today at the Ellipse Arts Center.

So what did the Frenchwoman deem photo-worthy in our fair suburb? She chose an abandoned children's playset in the courtyard between a parking lot and an office building. A white-walled room empty except for a piano and a metal chair. A crumpled blanket of torn-up grass on a soccer field.

In an e-mail interview translated from French, Bethléem, 30, describes the early response to her work.

"They already tell me: Arlington is not ghostly like that -- it's full of life. But I think we don't look enough around us."

By contrast, Babineau stayed away from architectural shots in Reims because he says the town's art deco buildings have "been done to death over there." He avoided taking photos of the champagne industry for the same reason.

Instead, he stuck with street photography. He hopped on buses, mingled with the residents and walked around the city center to get photos of ordinary life there. One photo is of a woman shopping at a market in front of an advertisement for the French edition of GQ magazine.

Babineau juxtaposes the old and the new, particularly in a photo of a construction site. A tangle of red fiber-optic cables are in the foreground; in the background, a plaque commemorating Joan of Arc.

Didier Rousselet, who wrote the text for the exhibition's accompanying book, was born in Paris but has lived in Arlington for 16 years. In one of his essays, Rousselet -- who helped coordinate the exchange -- writes that the photographs reveal "hidden truths" about the cities.

"Cécile was very interested in the architecture, and what I learned is there is beauty in the Arlington landscape, in the long, straight streets," he says in an interview. "When we think about Arlington, we don't necessarily see the beauty of some buildings."

He says Babineau's street-scene photographs give the lie to Reims's reputation as a cold place -- both in weather and in people's behavior.

"The city is really very alive," he says. "It looks more like a southern city [in France] -- people living outdoors. It emphasized this part which is very often hidden."

Across the river, at the Martin Luther King Jr. Library downtown, another European artist is interpreting America. Matthew Thompson, a London-based conceptual artist, has re-created a plywood shelter from Resurrection City, the 1968 encampment on the Mall where thousands set up temporary residence to draw attention to the plight of the nation's poor.

The full-size shelter, called "Hier ist die Future," stands in the Great Hall of the library. A glass case of original documents accompanies the sculpture, including an aerial photograph of Resurrection City, editorial cartoons about hunger and a diagram of how to construct the shelters by architect John Wiebenson. His widow, Abigail, helped Thompson gather the documents.

"The MLK Library is heavily used by the D.C. homeless population, almost like a day center where they can go and rest," Thompson says. "I wanted to comment on that because it's a microcosm of a relevant issue today, [poverty]."

The context surrounding Thompson's sculpture gives it extra significance: On Feb. 1, D.C. libraries plan to enact new rules, including a ban on sleeping and a limit on bringing in bags. The rules will "make the environment more welcoming," a library spokesman said.

Thompson, 42, is in Washington for three months with a Kluge research scholarship at the Library of Congress. The title, "Hier ist die Future," combines French, German and English and can be translated as "yesterday is the future" or "here is the future."

He says the title is "quite cryptic" but reveals his artistic intention:

"I like this overlapping of the past and the present, which parallels what I'm doing . . . reenacting the past."

Crossing Glances runs through March 28 at the Ellipse Arts Center, 4350 Fairfax Drive, Arlington. Opening reception tonight, 6-9. Free. Visit http://www.arlingtonarts.org/ellipseartscenter.htm or call 703-228-7710 for more information.

Hier ist die Future will be at the King library, 901 G St. NW, through Feb. 28. Free. 202-727-1291.




By Rachel Saslow


Updated: Thursday, January 22, 2009
12:22 
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Sunday, February 01, 2009 
Behold the Beholder

Exchanged Glances is exactly what it's purported to be. Sister cities Arlington and the French city of Reims exchanged photographers and turned them loose to record their impressions of the other city.
Stuck in the inexorable day to day flow of life, the contextual structure of our lives often fades into the background to the extent that we no longer notice it at all. If we have the means, we often travel to spice up our lives and shake off the cobwebs. The inadvertent byproduct of such travel, and cultural exchange in general, is the way it often tells you more about yourself than the exotic people and places you're supposedly seeking out.
Arlington street photographer John Babineau spent two weeks in Reims, France doing what he does here at home: photograph people living life out in the public urban environment. Cécile Bethléem of Reims came here for a month to shoot Arlington. Cécile Bethléem wanted to record Arlington not as a tourist, but rather as residents would see it. She specifically avoided recording people as she felt those photos would be about the faces and reactions of individuals, and she wanted to record Arlington as a collective community.
Separating these two views of the world would greatly diminish their message. The real power of this show comes from the juxtaposition and the resulting comparison and contrast thereof. And what a contrast it is!
Having hosted two world wars and nearly 30 international Grand Prix/Formula 1 races in the last century, Reims is an international city in a way Arlington can't even imagine. All that back and forth has to erode the European notion of space and what constitutes "mine." The contiguous 48 states, being defined by two oceans, gives us a sense of rigidity about our space and security that also reaches far back into our past. One could postulate that the attacks of 9/11 were so shocking to us because it rattled that very notion.
America is compartmentalized on the local and personal level as well. We're addicted to personal space. No matter what city planners do they can't get us out of our cars and onto public transit. The American dream is to own our own home, for that is our castle. And with the McMansioning of America they seem more and more like castles with moats and drawbridges.
All of which seems to be inadvertently recorded by these two photographers.

Entre Deux Pays

Taken as a whole, Cécile Bethléem's photos of Arlington have a neutron bomb look to them as if you were the last person alive. It's a highly alienating view of our surroundings. The surroundings we've built for ourselves.
First and foremost her photos display a strong sense of geometry and isolating division of space. None seems so horribly condemning as her juxtaposed image of the back side of the Highlander Motor Inn on Wilson Blvd., with the blue-tiled roof of the International House of Pancakes and office building behind it on N. Fairfax Drive. Interrelated color cues harmonize the two images, making it seem like one image at first blush. Eventually you come around to the notion that it's comparing the isolation of motel life with the cubical division of office life. Ouch!
TJ Community Center doesn't come off much better. In Bethléem's hands, it looks like a prison with guard towers and a playground set outside its walls. Her collection of detached homes, shot individually, seem to express a version of domestic isolation.
John Babineau's view of Reims fits much of our stereotypical view of Europe. Open common areas where people walk and interact with one another, complete with street vendors. The built environment he records shows angular modern structures mixed with centuries-old handcrafted structures with humanizing curves and texture. By contrast, the Arlington structures could be drawn out with nothing but a straight edge and pencil. Not knowing where these two places were, if you had to choose one to live in you'd choose Reims without so much as a second thought.
We can clearly see the long standing cultural mix of Reims in Babineau's photo titled "Cimetiére du Nord." All of the graves marked with crosses state that the person buried there died for France. On the right-hand side of the frame we see an Islamic head stone, which we can only assume belongs to a Muslim.
Babineau seems closest to outright commentary in his triptych images (as most of his photos are) titled "Getting Around Town" and "Global Advertising." The latter shows three advertising posters for Hollywood movies. The central photo depicts a nun dressed in drab gray plodding across the street in flat sandals, while Sarah Jessica Parker kicks up her high heels in a pink frock extolling the virtues of "Sex in the City."
As bitingly wry and thought provoking as that image is, "Getting Around Town" is far more subtle, though no less clear in its message. In the first photo, we see a driver in a Pontiac Firebird convertible, top down and oblivious to our gaze. The second image shows a French woman who has apparently stopped her bicycle to get her picture taken. She greets us with her full attention and a wide, welcoming smile. The third photo in that series shows several young men in a European compact car waiting at a light, also oblivious to our gaze and presence. Behind them in the store front window we see a poster with yet another happy smiling French girl on a bicycle.
It would be interesting to see how Reims residents in general view themselves after seeing this show. Seems we have some work to do. Maybe we could take a clue from the likes of René Dreyfus, Tazio Nuvolari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Phil Hill and Jim Clark. We could close down I-66 and Wilson Boulevard for a few days every year and host a Grand Prix race of our own!
You're already feeling that doing so would be an unacceptable inconvenience, not to mention its violating your space and sense of safety, aren't you?
Note: the Ellipse Arts Center hosts a talk/workshop by intellectual property lawyer John D. Mason. Also a literary agent, and member of the Board of Directors of Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts, his talk, "Copyright Basics for Professional Artists," will cover the basic legalities of copyrights, trademarks and contracts for visual artists. Bring your note pads and questions from 7 - 9 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 5.



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Written by Kevin Mellema   
Thursday, 29 January 2009 12:55
12:15 
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Monday, January 05, 2009 

Regards croisés/Crossing Glances




Arlington-Reims, si le jumelage est récent - il date de 2006 - l'idée d'un projet artistique partagé a vu le jour très rapidement. L'exposition photographique Regards croisés/Crossing Glances présentée à l'Ancien Collège des Jésuites, résulte de cette volonté commune. Deux artistes, une vidéaste française, Cécile Bethléem, et un photographe américain, John Babineau, ont ainsi été sollicités pour donner corps à cette proposition artistique entièrement financée par la Ville. En mai dernier, l'ancienne élève de l'Esad effectuait dans la ville voisine de la capitale fédérale (Arlington et Washington ne sont séparées que par le fleuve Potomac) son baptême du feu dans le Nouveau Monde. En juin, de ce côté-ci de l'Atlantique, John Babineau devenait, le temps d'un reportage, unAméricain à Reims. Un décalage qui leur a permis de se croiser dans leur propre ville. Leur approche a été différente. A Arlington, Cécile Béthléem a cheminé du centre ville vers les 'suburban', prenant des clichés de lieux sans présence humaine. Tandis qu'à Reims, John Babineau, parti du théâtre en bus, regagnait le centre à pied, reflex au poing, en photographiant des gens. Ce qui rend la confrontation encore plus intéressante. L'exposition présente plus de cinquante photos couleur, moyens et grands formats, souvent des diptyques et des triptyques. Pour la publication du catalogue (96 pages, bilingue), Didier Rousselet a rejoint les deux photographes. Né à Paris, comédien, metteur en scène et écrivain, vivant et travaillant à Arlington, il sert de pont entre les deux continents.

A. C., VRI n°252, janvier 2009.

Ellipse Arts Center
Arlington Cultural Affairs, suite 125
4350 N. Fairfax Drive

- Opening Reception:
6 - 9 p.m.  Exhibition remarks begin at 6:30 p.m & Friday, January 23 - Saturday, March 28, 2009

- Galeries de l'Ancien Collège des Jésuites, 1 place Museux, vernissage le 5 février & du 6 février au 15 mars.

Le catalogue de l'exposition est en vente à l'Ancien Collège des Jésuites et dans le réseau des bibliothèques municipales.

16:51 
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Friday, June 13, 2008 

Ninja 7, "Let's be sweet & tender"

sweet tenderness the summer issue very rare is finding  something special in the windows of a main shopping street everything has its place treasures just can't  be too easy to find

http://www.ninja-mag.com/

Publication Director

Curator & Art Director

Pierre Cialdella

Communication Director

François Hallard

Valérie Servant www.myspace.com/alphaladylouve

Aleksandar Stoiljkovic www.aleksandar.co.uk

Cécile Bethleem c.bethleem@hotmail.fr

Gammaromano www.myspace.com/cumforbreakfast

Fabrice Cazenave fabrice.cazenave@club-internet.fr

Gianni Moretti giannimoretti78@gmail.com

Jack & Bill www.jackandbill.com

Jan Durina durinajan@gmail.com

Julie Rica www.myspace.com/jmagine

Martin Pisotti www.martinpisotti.com

Jérôme Icardo www.thethirdeye.fr

Pierre Cialdella www.ninja-mag.com

François-Marie Banier www.fmbanier.com

09:14 
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Monday, June 02, 2008 
Reims, France & Arlington, Virginia:
A Sister City Photo Exchange
Friday, January 23 - Saturday, March 7, 2009
Opening Reception:  Thursday, January 22, 2009
6 - 9 p.m.

Arlington Cultural Affairs will sponsor photographer John Babineau in photographing Arlington's sister city, Reims, France.  In exchange, the Cultural Office of the City of Reims will sponsor Cécile Bethléem from Reims to document life in Arlington. This exhibition will showcase the results of this photo exchange, and a book highlighting both photographers will be available for purchase.
18:26 
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Tuesday, March 11, 2008 

Départ le 25 avril 2008, Résidence à Arlington (U.S.A)

Résidence de 1 mois à Arlington (U.S.A) associée à la Ville de Reims, édition d’un catalogue pour la fin 2008 et exposition simultanée début 2009 entre Reims et Arlington.

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Tuesday, February 19, 2008 

Standard 18

Publication du dessin "prisonniers" tiré de la série "cheveu", Standard 18.

09:52 
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