Re-appropriation in art : why does it still trouble and upset so much, how does it affect the creative space, the idea of authorship, the legal domain and finally what does it imply for the domain of thinking? This type of complexity, at the intersection of art, law and art history has recently been at the centre of the Reims artistic scene. Jean-François Gavoty, a sculptor renowned for his work in permanent dialogue with art history received a court summons for having “recopied” a piece by Paul Maureau-Vauthier.

Artists, philosophers, jurists, and critics talk about their work and of the importance they give to re-appropriation to better understand its sense, between art and philosophy.

Work under the scientific direction of  Fabrice Bourlez and Lorenzo Vinciguerra

The work brings together a series of texts and interviews that cover the advances of deleuzienne thought from the 1970s to the 1990s. Twenty years of philosophical evolution, still in touch with its “outside”, addressing itself to philosophers and non- philosophers alike. If Deleuze wished to question the unity of language to bring forth new modalities of meaning – multiple and sometimes paradoxical – this work, immense in the perspectives and the fields that it uncovers, allows us to appreciate the multiplicities that are found in Deleuze’s words and images. Generally “pourparlers” (negotiations) are long drawn out affairs aiming for a consensus. Here, each text constitutes more of a possible movement to conduct a “guerrilla campaign” against oneself, against the certainties of what things are and how things speak about themselves. Pourparlers is more than just an introduction to deleuzienne thought, it is a war machine against all the foregone conclusions that encircle and frame the real and the language that is supposed to say it. Pourparlers (negotiations) between art(s) and philosophy to say thing otherwise.

The contributors explain their link to the work : to what extent did it guide their work? What relation does their work have with this or that aspect of Deleuze’s thought? From the reading that each person makes of Pourparlers, it means thinking about the ways in which Deleuze develops, in plural forms, languages and images in the arts and in philosophy as much as in politics.

The eye and the mind – Merleau-Ponty between art and philosophy

Work under the scientific direction of  Fabrice Bourlez and Lorenzo Vinciguerra

Last published text during the lifetime of Merleau-Ponty, l’Oeil et l’Esprit condenses and deploys some of his main lines of thought from painting and the gesture of painting… This work sets itself this challenge : to show that this text is still relevant, in the aesthetic field and in contemporary artistic creation. This gives rise to the question that is addressed to both philosophers and artists : in what manner does the reading of l’Oeil et l’Esprit influence your work and your reflexion today?

(Transtopie – Etat des lieux 2008/09 – les friches industrielles dans les Ardennes)
A sensitive path and the proceedings of the symposium “transtopia, industrial wastelands, which spaces” conducted by ESAD Reims with URCA and the Ecole d’architecture et du Paysage de Lille between 2008 and 2009.