Join us on Thursday, 10 April at 6:30 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art for a public talk by French art critic, publisher, and curator François Piron. In this keynote lecture, Piron will reflect on his professional journey in criticism, writing, editing and publishing, emphasising the importance of a commitment to openness, curiosity, friendship and learning. This lecture marks the opening of this year’s programme of events dedicated to discussions on art criticism, art writing and critical practices, organised in the context of the Visual Art Criticism Awards.
‘Twenty-five years of practice haven’t dissipated the doubts. When I’m asked what I do, words never come in the same order. What is the purpose of people like me? In retrospect, I believe we help memorise things that might otherwise be forgotten. How is that? By every means possible: chatting, writing, curating, teaching, editing, publishing.
I would like to share how I created tools that seemed good for nothing, and became good for everything. I would like to share how friendship is what remains when you’re tired of endless production. I would like to share how I keep learning, which is to say I want to keep saying, “I don’t know”.’ – François Piron
FRANÇOIS PIRON is an exhibition curator, art critic, teacher, editor and publisher based in Paris. He operates as a senior curator at the Palais de Tokyo. Over the past 20 years, he created several independent structures in the field of contemporary art, and co-manages the cooperative publishing house Paraguay in Paris (www.paraguaypress.com). His curatorial work has focused extensively on relationships between art and literature, but also between art, history and the social sciences, striving to make marginalized areas of culture visible, questioning the role of institutions. Recent publications include a book of interviews with philosopher and publisher Sylvère Lotringer, as well as a contribution to the book Queer Exhibition Histories (Valiz, 2023); recent exhibitions include Exposed (Palais de Tokyo, 2023), on the impact of the AIDS epidemic on the art since the 1990s, and Approaching Unreason (Palais de Tokyo,2024) on relationships between experimental psychiatry and collective artistic practices.