KEDGE welcomes art to its Paris campus with the RE-PLAY!!! exhibition by Laurent Perbos

Art is a powerful educational tool that has long been used in American and (sometimes) European campuses. Used in combination with innovative teaching methods, art stimulates both sensitive and critical thinking. Laurent Perbos’ first exhibition, RE-PLAY!!! is on display until December 2021, in partnership with the BAG Bakery Art Gallery.

In its strategic plan KEDGE 25, the school pledged to be an original, sustainable, and inclusive school. In line with that pledge, it is developing educational programmes that engage each generation on socio-environmental issues.

The expertise and programmes in arts, culture, and creative industries management of Kedge Arts School have made it possible to launch this educational experiment. By welcoming art to its campuses, KEDGE offers another way of deciphering and understanding the world. Art allows us to develop both conscious and critical thinking and creates opportunities for conversations between students, professors and teaching staff. In our information-age society, where we are now connected to images more than ever, art can foster organisational creativity and innovation.

The RE-PLAY!!! exhibition by Laurent Perbos, which will be displayed on the Paris campus until December 2021, speaks to the resumption of time… the way out of this seemingly endless crisis, like a cry! Placed in areas within the school where they can be enjoyed by all, without symbolic institutional boundaries, Laurent’s neo-pop works unassumingly question the limits of our hypermodern society.

Proposed reading by Christian Pallatier, Director of BAG-Bakery Art Gallery and Anne Gombault, Director of the KEDGE Arts School:

Niobe – Laurent Perbos

"The enabling of play by artists is essential. And the appeal is even stronger when, as is the case here, play is the very subject of the work. Perbos' work allows us to rediscover a sense of meaning behind our gestures, actions, and lifestyles through the simplicity of the transformation of objects in our society that enjoys leisure. Perbos shifts the threshold of the acceptance of reality by creating new forms for objects. He moves the games - their parameters and their rules - from the real world to the world of his art."

Ping Pong Pipe – Laurent Perbos

"Whether an emotional outlet or an existential necessity, this colourful neo-pop art is welcoming and sensitive, understandable and penetrable. It is charged with historical, mythological, sociological, artistic references and more or less explicit quotations on everything that troubles our society. The despair/hope represented by the vain Niobe who mocked the Gods and weeps here a torrent of coloured tears - how can we not see here a metaphor of the current pandemic situation even if the piece was created before its appearance.  The savage climate crisis with forests of trees and stumps made of garden hoses. The significance of diversity and inclusiveness with basketballs in rainbow colours. A ping-pong table that invites us to play differently... Since nature is returning to the heart of the game, are we going to play as we have before or will we succeed in changing the game? Each of us will ask ourselves our own set of questions through these inspiring works."

Souches – Laurent Perbos 

The work of Laurent Perbos, born in Bordeaux and currently living in Marseille, has been featured in numerous exhibitions around the world. In addition to the KEDGE Paris campus this autumn, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France also featured his work during the recent Nuit Blanche in October 2021, with an off-balanced tennis court on the steps of the grand staircase.

Go, RE-PLAY !!!

A virtual tour of the exhibition can be seen here: https://youtu.be/Vyde57MFZ9c

As well as onsite upon request: Kedge Arts School  wanqiu.hu@kedgebs.com 

About the Kedge Arts School: Created in 2009, the Creative Industries and Culture centre of expertise is dedicated to producing and disseminating knowledge on the management of arts, culture, and creative industries. The centre studies the nature of creative and cultural goods, the conditions of their production, and the way in which French, European and international, non-profit and for-profit, public and private, creative and cultural organisations of all sizes function, in order to better assist them in their management. Founded on this expertise, the Kedge Arts School offers several programmes: the MSc Arts & Creative Industries Management in Paris, the Franco-Chinese Institute of Arts and Design Management in Shanghai (in partnership with the Central Academy of Fine Arts(CAFA)), the Culture and Innovation major and the Entertainment course, as well as courses on creation and creativity in the Grande Ecole Master in Management Programme in Bordeaux and Marseille.

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