AU DÉPART FLAGSHIP
20, rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré
with special guests LIVE
In partnership with ADP Art Collective, Galerie Micki Meng, Performa, and more
Au Départ Art Collective is pleased to announce The World Question Center 2024 as part of the opening program for its new flagship store in Paris. This event marks the first by the Au Départ Art Collective in their new premises on Rue Faubourg de Saint-Honoré, located in the heart of Paris.
The World Question Center was originally a participatory performance by American artist James Lee Byars in 1969. Conceived as a live think tank, Byars called approximately 100 artists, thinkers, and writers via a phone bank to gather questions. The request was: “Could you present us a question that you feel is pertinent concerning the evolution of humanity and knowledge?” Byars compiled and discussed these questions with the audience.
In 2024, Au Départ Art Collective reimagines Byars’ event. Over four hours, a diverse group of approximately 40 contemporary thinkers, artists, writers, and other cultural producers will be called over the phone and via video conference platforms to gather questions relevant to our global conditions today and the future of humankind.
Replacing Byars as the host and moderator, Au Départ Art Collective has invited three of the most influential international art curators and museum directors—RoseLee Goldberg (New York), Nicolas Bourriaud (Paris), and Daniel Birnbaum (London). They will be live in the store, making calls and discussing the questions posed by participants during this exclusive event.
The World Question Center 2024 is an initiative by Au Départ Art Collective in partnership with Performa (New York) and Micky Meng Gallery (San Francisco, New York, Paris).
About Au Départ Art Collective
Au Départ Art Collective is a new program designed to support artists by preserving and promoting their work. This initiative focuses on helping emerging artists worldwide by collaborating with galleries, museums, and other partners, especially in France, to help artists achieve their creative goals.
About the Moderators
Daniel Birnbaum is an art curator, museum director, and art historian based in London. He currently directs Acute Art, an organization that provides artists access to cutting-edge technologies like virtual and augmented realities. Birnbaum holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Stockholm and was the director of the Städelschule in Frankfurt (2001-2010), one of Europe’s most prestigious art academies. He also served as director of the Museum of Modern Art (Moderna Museet) in Stockholm and was the artistic director of the 53rd Venice Biennale.
Nicolas Bourriaud is an influential curator and art critic. He co-founded and co-directed the Palais de Tokyo in Paris (1999-2006) and served as senior curator for Contemporary Art at Tate Britain (2007-2010). In 2010, he became director of the studies department at France's Ministry of Culture and later director of the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Paris (2011-2015). His book Relational Aesthetics (1998) revolutionized the understanding of contemporary art.
RoseLee Goldberg is one of the world’s foremost art historians, specializing in the history of performance art. She has published over two dozen books on the subject and is the founding director of the Performa Biennial, which she initiated in New York in 2004. Goldberg holds a PhD from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London and has served as director of the Royal College of Art Gallery in London and curator at The Kitchen in New York. Her book Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present, first published in 1979 and subsequently updated and expanded multiple times, is a landmark in art history.
