The CLIC® Chronicles – OFFSCREEN: the study and dialogue between artists working with image in all its forms

The second annual contemporary art exhibition OFFSCREEN – dreamed up by Jean-Daniel Compain and Julien Frydman in 2022 – was open to the public between October 18 and 22. It took place at Grand Garage Haussmann, a brutalist and disruptive venue in the heart of Paris’s 8th arrondissement OFFSCREEN offers a sharp, innovative contrast to Paris+, France’s largest contemporary art fair.

Its ambition is for visitors to access the dialogue between artists working with image in all forms and to question our relationship with the world in order to gain a new perspective. Lombard Odier is proud to support this endeavour, which is wholly in keeping with the group’s rethink everything^® philosophy: to constantly re-evaluate and rethink the world in order to offer clients a fresh investment perspective.

We met Julien Frydman, OFFSCREEN's artistic director and co-founder, who shared his vision of art and described the natural synergies between Lombard Odier and this exhibition.

Hello Julien, can you tell us about your career and your role at OFFSCREEN?

My career includes various experiences associated with the image, particularly in photography. I worked at the Magnum agency for a few years, partly as executive director. Then, having managed the extension of Paris Photo to the Grand Palais and to Los Angeles, I was at Paramount Studios for a few years. I was at the LUMA Foundation in its early years, setting things up, and then at a major publishing house, Editions Delpire.

Recently, with the upheaval of the major players on the Parisian contemporary art scene since Art Basel took over the International Contemporary Art Fair (FIAC), Jean-Daniel Compain and I suggested we embark on a new proposition – one which is a little bit different to that normally seen at art fairs. That is how OFFSCREEN was born.

How did OFFSCREEN start?

When I launched the fair in Los Angeles rather than New York, it was partly because in Los Angeles there was a practice of working with image – not just historically but also more recently – in a much more open way, and as you can imagine, It’s an important place for moving image. I’m not talking about cinema, but really more experimental forms. And what I always had in mind was amplifying and feeding that dialogue.

The idea of OFFSCREEN is to allow a study, a vision, a discovery, a connection, a dialogue among artists who work with the image in all its forms, be they from different historical periods or the contemporary. And the opportunity was there to launch this new concept at a time when all the players in contemporary art are present, i.e. during Paris+.

How did you select the themes and the artists in the spotlight for this second edition?

There is no theme other than it being OFFSCREEN. So, that defines the field, which ranges from installations to sculpture, to moving image, to cutting, to collage, to photography, to films.

This year, we turned the spotlight on Rosa Barba, an artist of international renown who works with physical film. The films she shoots often explore important historical questions. She has the ability to bring to life one or multiple works in the Grand Garage Haussmann, the setting we chose this year.

Last year you chose the Salomon de Rothschild house. This year you took something of a 180° turn, with the Grand Garage Haussmann. Why did you choose that as the setting?

First of all, you do well to use the word “setting”, because while it is in a totally different style, it has a singularity, an exceptional personality. There’s that art deco type façade that gives it a fairly avant-garde style and spirit. Then in the interior, you have those big concrete slabs from the late 1940s. This brutalist structure and its environment makes you think of a New York loft or a Berlin artist’s workshop.

What’s important is that the place has a soul and so awakens the artists’ sensibility and prepares the public. And also that part of what you have to do when you create this type of exhibition is to be able to generate surprise, a desire.

Your choice to rethink the venue in order to provide a very different experience to last year chimes with Lombard Odier’s rethink everything^® philosophy. How does that translate into your approach to art?

First of all, I think in an individual way. I’ve always liked to be inside the disruption. But I think that the very nature of art is to be able to both wonder and be uncertain, and that uncertainty is a factor in an energy, a desire, a capacity to exist and to find, precisely, a way of being in the world that’s different and singular.

So for me, rethink everything^® is a philosophy that’s perfectly in tune with the artists’ approach. They’re there to allow us, precisely, to think in another way, not just to rest on our certainties. And the entrepreneurial dimension itself of the OFFSCREEN adventure, which is to come off the beaten track and to know how to question ourselves about our possibly overly set ways, which may be out of date given the different ways that our world is developing. That is a key element of their approach.

What role do you think investors in, and collectors of, works of art have to play?

You’re using two terms that I would like to combine into one. For me, it is above all an investment of the heart or of feeling which dominates.

A collector, that is someone who decides to buy a work of art, is principally a person who recognises the almost indefinable value of what they want to live with. That comes ahead of any notions about acquisition or investment. I think it's first of all a personal concept, a secret garden that you grant yourself, and in the end also a recognition of what the artist has been able to create in you. And so the transaction that the purchase represents in some way materialises that recognition.

Read also: DYSFUNCTIONAL – sustainably blurring the lines between art and design

I believe that art is one of those rare actions that can be free and disinterested. I would argue that what is important in the artistic propositions that are made for us is sincerity: to know how to value, to look for that sincerity, that singularity.

What does art mean for you? And what do you think the role of art is in society?

I think that art, and therefore artists, allow us to understand what it is to be human. And perhaps it’s the sensitive part in each of us, which isn’t a reasoning part, which isn’t necessarily something you can put words to, but which touches us, which appeals to us in different registers, and it’s artists who know how to handle that language. If we want to remain human, if we want to remain at the level of a man or a woman capable of going beyond the contingent and knowing what's common to everyone, we need art and we need artists.

How do you nourish the relationships with your clients?

What you would put into the “clients” category would be galleries. But in fact, I really see them as partners, that’s to say my work is made to measure. One of the key features of OFFSCREEN is that you don’t have stands; you have installations. According to the nature of the installation, we think about the best location, we’ll give the space needed for the work to live its best life. It’s a dialogue, it’s about complicity, it’s about partners, it’s about permanently caring and at the same time it’s a path that I myself have to keep to, to deliver something that works That is what made to measure means.

Read also: Lombard Odier and Carpenters Workshop Gallery in innovative partnership at Venice Biennale

The artists and the relationship you have with them come into this equation. How do you approach this within the framework of OFFSCREEN?

Above all else, it’s about respect and listening. Then you need understanding; I need always to bear in mind that they are speaking a language different to mine, and if they’re certain of something, I must listen to them, given that I’ve chosen to work with them and I respect their work.

What do you think are the synergies between Lombard Odier and OFFSCREEN?

I’m very happy to realise that when I proposed this OFFSCREEN concept, a new and unexpected proposition which might appear bewildering to some people, I immediately saw that what might appear to be a slogan was really in Lombard Odier’s DNA. This materialised in the support I got from Lombard Odier right from the outset, with guidance and encouragement to help this disruptive initiative come good.

Then I think that the ability to trace a link between different generations, between an understanding of the contemporary challenges, and to take a position in this area of activity – fairs and art fairs – and being capable of supporting a new vision, is a form of risk-taking and of long-term confidence, as it’s the second year that Lombard Odier has immediately sustained and supported my initiative, without raising an eyebrow. So it’s extremely reassuring to feel that I have a partner at my side, solid, trusting, and one that I can count on. What I find in Lombard Odier is a listening ear, a capacity for dialogue and day-to-day professionalism which make it extremely satisfying for everybody.

What ambition do you have for OFFSCREEN over the coming years?

To remain surprising, and above all to remain a proposition on a human scale.

This document is issued by Bank Lombard Odier & Co Ltd or an entity of the Group (hereinafter “Lombard Odier”). It is not intended for distribution, publication, or use in any jurisdiction where such distribution, publication, or use would be unlawful, nor is it aimed at any person or entity to whom it would be unlawful to address such a document. This document was not prepared by the Financial Research Department of Lombard Odier.

Read more.