The return of the Printemps de septembre in its early autumn slot and under its “historic” name also provides an opportunity to redeploy the event across the Toulouse urban community, with more than twenty partner venues hosting its exhibitions, concerts, screenings and performances.

This constellation of events brings together over fifty artists invited by the festival, along with a dozen associate curators, to “take over the city” for a period of four weeks. An archipelago-opera, the coming Printemps de septembre is organizing its visual and musical propositions in accordance with a number of themes for reflection:

— the museum today in the Augustins, Abattoirs and Paul-Dupuy museums, where artists (Aurélien Froment and Raphaël Zarka) and curators (Charles Esche and Grazia Quaroni) think reflexively about or challenge the institution, collections and their exhibition in three “museum games”;

— places and their interpretation by works made specially for them (Hans Op de Beeck in the refectory of the Jacobins convent, Claudia Comte at Espace EDF Bazacle, Eva Kot’átkovà at the Hôtel-Dieu and Dominik Lang at the Château d’Eau) – four singular appropriations;

— music, when it takes effect at the heart of works by Stan Douglas, Ragnar Kjartansson, Vincent Meessen, David Shrigley,etc.: these installations play the scores of the festival sound track;

— weak, light, ephemeral or festival forms, in courtyards, bars, university canteens, on the Garonne and all around the city, from the outskirts to the historic centre: a whole set of experiences of displacement and decentring refresh our contact with the urban space, with those nocturnal flâneries and convivial movements with groups and individuals that are the hallmark of this festival;

— the new geography and new history of the worlds of art, explored both by the civic ritual imagined by Claire Tancons and by the exhibition conceived by Christine Eyene, or by the Kirghiz artists presented by Karine Tissot.

All in all, seven group shows, ten solo shows, a score of concerts, performances, discussions and other participatory events ending with a Dada Grand Ball dedicated to Marc Dachy will explore the interactions at work in the plurality of art worlds and culture, in the multiplicity of worlds of thought.

Christian Bernard

Director

In 2014, the Printemps de septembre decided to become biennial. Since this change of rhythm raised questions about the festival’s overall project, I decided to ask Christian Bernard to redefine the event, but based on the essential principles that inspired its creation event that would recapture the generous, demanding yet playful atmosphere of a festival, encouraging new work, formal discoveries and creating a genuine dialogue with its environment and its various players, directly connected with a changing world.

2016 is the first episode in this new sequence in which we are planning the festival in a long-term perspective. The principles applied this year will be developed further in 2018 and in 2020. No doubt one of the main ones is to multiply projects conceived specifically for the town and its region, projects that are highly singular in that they cannot be seen anywhere else than in the places – including urban spaces – for which they were conceived, in all their diversity.

Christian’s decision to make no distinctions in the presentation of practices is also characteristic of this period when the hybridization of forms and the multidisciplinary nature of many artistic practices makes categorization a very limited exercise. And that is all to the good: the Printemps de septembre has always sought to explore new paths, to look to the future, to think outside the box. By taking back our original name, the Printemps de septembre, we are reaffirming our pioneering spirit and curiosity. I am delighted to see this embodied in such a plurality ofvoices, the voices of all the artists we have invited here to show the world in a different light.

Marie-Thérèse Perrin

President and founder