Les Immatériaux, in the Labyrinth of Hanging Screens

An experimental exhibition

From 28 March to 15 July 1985 the Centre de Création Industrielle put on what was a unique event in its history, an experimental exhibition that was part-artistic, part-scientific and philosophical, on the theme of new materials and the elements broadly associated with them. Such was the depth of the subject that it was impossible to take in the whole exhibition. The exhibition was designed by Philippe Délis and curated by Jean-François Lyotard, as mentioned above, with the help of the design theorist Thierry Chaput. The event was produced with the participation of the BPI, IRCAM, and the MNAM and of a large number of international businesses and organisations. It consolidated CCI in its position as a critical observer of society and modernity, which it had occupied since the 1970s.

The Grande Galerie on the fifth floor was best known for its big international exhibitions Paris-New York (1977), Paris-Berlin (1978) and Paris-Moscou (1979), which were organised essentially in thematic, chronological ensembles, but with an interdisciplinary dimension: “[…] they were not anymore art exhibitions, as in traditional ‘beaux-arts’ museums, […] they were documentary exhibitions within a cultural frame, involving not only aesthetics but also history, philosophy, economics, sociology […].”¹ Les Immatériaux continued in this interdisciplinary direction, while breaking with the pedagogical, didactic, even encyclopaedic habits of the exhibition form. The point was to convey sensation, not understanding. Because of this fundamental difference this exhibition stands out from many others, even today.

Les Immatériaux was an “essay in the literary sense of the term, that is to say, an attempt, with no claims to mastery, to innovate in the well-established field of exhibitions,”² and a “questioning of the medium of the traditional exhibition.”³ Many aspects were innovative. For example, the choice of a philosopher as curator, the use of hi-tech visitor resources, such as infrared headphones, or again the multiple choice of paths through the exhibition.

The philosopher Jean-François Lyotard spoke of the desire to go beyond the book format in order to express his ideas, and also saw Les Immatériaux as a formal experiment: “[…] as a philosopher, having finished Le Différend […] I began to wonder if it was not possible to get away from the book support, insofar as it struggles to compete with other supports, and if it wasn’t possible to philosophise by other means.”⁴

Press reactions were mixed. “Doctor Lyotard’s ghost train,”⁵ “A ‘curiosity shop’, naïve and macabre,”⁶ a “festival of the déjà-vu”⁷ – there was no shortage of expressions to mock what some perceived as the tribulations of a handful of intellectuals cut off from reality, if not as an incomprehensible and macabre mishmash. Circulation within the exhibition, and the headphones, were also strongly criticised.

The budget of 9,666,000 francs, not including the contributions from many partners (intellectual, technological, scientific, audio-visual) and the costs of in-house personnel, was the highest of any exhibition yet shown at the Centre Georges-Pompidou.⁸ It was not matched by visitor numbers: the daily average attendance was 2,168 and the total of 205,990 below the figure for other exhibitions on this scale.

Today, we are seeing a revival in international interest in this exhibition on the part of art and design researchers, with scholars from around the world exploring the Centre Georges-Pompidou archives. It constitutes a model for experiments in exhibition forms, carried out through and with the exhibition, an experimental model at every level of its trans-disciplinary and collaborative conception (catalogue, visitor experience, curatorship, display design). Likewise, the sometimes little-known subjects it addressed are now widely described and discussed. Les Immatériaux can be considered a 20th-century masterpiece.

I believe that the increasing mechanisation of the world has, at least in my own life, a starting point: Les Immatériaux […]. Rereading the catalogue of this exhibition […], and recalling the feelings I had when I visited it at the time, I thought to myself that a lot of the questions I still find myself asking today were already formulated there.⁹

Moving around in Les Immatériaux

The idea of a very open exhibition circuit was in sync with Lyotard’s basic idea, which broke with the model of the encyclopaedic exhibition exemplified by the big shows on the fifth-floor gallery mentioned above (Paris-New York, Paris-Berlin, Paris-Moscou). “[…] we take our lead from Diderot’s scriptural practice in Les Salons.”¹⁰ The conception team broke away from the pedagogical formats of the exhibition, inherited from painting galleries in the 18th century. The model of the Bildungsroman, in which the mobile visitor tests his intelligence in order to undergo a learning experience, was modern and not post-modern. “Above all, it [the exhibition], has no encyclopaedic finality and is not even this famous Bildungsroman, this journey of learning that it was in the modern period.”¹¹

The spatial proposition presented here thus consists “[…] in creating a feeling of uncertain space where all paths are possible, unstable and shifting, and with a murky transparency (as opposed to modern transparency).”¹² To begin with, it was the room plan that conditioned the visitor’s progress and circulation. This was very open, offering a choice of orientation right from the start of the visit, with a decision to go through one of five doors. Signposted and predefined sequences were therefore out of the question: the visit was described as ‘undulatory.’¹³

A limit of 900 on visitor numbers made a marked difference to circulation, increasing the empty spaces and the feeling of solitude: “The entrance quota to the exhibition limited the number of visitors allowed in the space at any moment to 900 (given the complexity of the exhibition layout).”¹⁴ The visitor limit was originally planned to be 600.

Finally, the system of spatial division comprised hanging walls (Fig. 1), designed to heighten the general hovering impression. These walls were diaphanous, cloaking the whole exhibition in a kind of grey, misty veil. Finding one’s way round this labyrinth of semi-transparent screens confronted visitors accustomed to much more linear structures with a very different kind of task.

The metal canvas from the Manufacture de Rougemont

The designers set great store by the hanging metal trellises that organised the spaces into sequences (Fig. 2). “The division of the space into zones and sites was obtained by the play of grids (in synthetic materials) hanging from the picture walls: suppleness within geometry, modulation of opacity and, therefore, of prescribed paths.”¹⁵ By the play of superimposition and lighting, the transparency of the gridded screens (Fig. 3) differentiated them from classic, smooth and monochrome picture walls standing on the floor.

We want transparency, to abandon the traditional exhibition layout (plaster picture walls defining the rooms) and allow greater transparency and lightness. We started working on the idea of mesh screens because they allowed for perspectives in space; they delimited zones that were more or less visible, offered, depending on the visitor’s position, density or transparency. And, perhaps even more radically in this striving for transparency, we decided to hang these metal partitions about ten centimetres above the floor.¹⁶

In terms of the chronology of the exhibition’s conception, the choice of material came before the designs: “[…] maybe two months, maybe two and a half before, we hadn’t drawn anything, we were still working with this set-up, we had chosen the materials that were going to define this exhibition.”¹⁷ The team worked mainly with writings and abstract sketches. Jean-François Lyotard himself quoted The Overexposed City by Paul Virilio in a speech he gave in 1984 on the subject of the exhibition’s spatial layout, in which he already mentioned the transparent walls:

[…] With the invention of the steel skeleton construction, the curtain walls made of light and transparent materials, such as glass or plastics, replace the stone facades, just as tracing paper, acetate and plexiglass replace the opacity of paper in the designing phase.¹⁸

Later, “[…] Jean-François Lyotard’s words were ‘vague, foggy, filter,’ and, taking these a bit literally, with Thierry [Chaput], we thought to ourselves, right, let’s go looking for filters.”¹⁹ The material was therefore originally chosen on the basis of Lyotard’s intentions.

[…] we started talking to filter makers, people who make large-scale filters, you find that millers have them, companies weave them, make a metal weave and make big rolls, about 1.2 metres wide, and could therefore produce the lengths that would constitute the walls of this exhibition.²⁰

They talked to several companies and the estimated cost for manufacturing and transport of 133,893 francs inc. VAT²¹ put forward by the Manufacture de Rougemont was at least half as expensive as the one by Roswag Tiss Metal, another company consulted for the “mesh screens.” It was able to cut the metal material into strips 1.2 metres wide and 3 metres high, rather than delivering it in rolls several hundred metres long. In September 1984, several panels in annealed steel were presented to Chaput and Délis, each with a different mesh size (holes from 0.14 mm to 1.3 mm), and therefore differing degrees of transparency (from 34 % to 73 %). Three types of material were proposed at first, in stainless steel, aluminium or galvanised steel. It should be noted that the stainless steel mesh was much more expensive than the others, and that lead times for the galvanised mesh were relatively short. For the exhibition they ordered 650 no. 20 panels in annealed steel mesh with 0.40 wire, plus 170 no. 10 panels, 0.50 wire. In November discussions mentioned a total of 1,750 panels, a lot more than the quantity finally ordered in December 1984.²²

150 screens in fireproof M1 technical material measuring 1.2 by 3 metres were ordered from the Société de Diffusion et de Confection de Textiles Contemporains pour Rideaux (SODICO). These grey metal sheets were sandwiched between two mesh screens in order to enhance the legibility of certain works.

We may also note that in architecture steel mesh offers several technical advantages: “strength, durability, rigidity when stressed, ease of maintenance, acoustic properties, etc. Metal fabrics often offer simultaneous solutions to several functional problems that the architect would otherwise have to deal with case by case.”²³ Moreover, they are fireproof and suit the strict safety standards for exhibitions and establishments visited by the public. However, the fabrics used in the exhibitions were fragile and had to be replaced several times because of production flaws or small defects. Some were damaged.²⁴

Hanging the screens

[…] At the time, on each ceiling frame (12.5 m) we had big beams that we moved in keeping with our needs, allowing us to hang the installations or attach rails to them for electricity or to support displays. For Les Immatériaux we created a regular grid of Halfen rails. The ceiling became modular. This meshing allowed us to fix metal partitions as required by the display sequence. These metal partitions were reprised on the ceiling and fixed on the floor by bolted rods. In those days the Centre’s floor consisted of a technical surface comprising metal slabs 80 cm x 80 cm fixed in concrete by 12 cm jacks.²⁵

The building therefore offered great creative liberty, a modularity in the hanging making it possible to hang virtually anything, thanks to the Halfen rails. However, the installation proved complicated. If, in order to avoid warping, they tightened them too much that made the floor ride up. The screens had to be straight, to look like sheets of paper standing in the space (Fig. 4 and Fig. 5).

Different types of partition were put in place (Fig. 6). Two or three can be distinguished in the exhibition. First of all, the 820 grids, which themselves varied in terms of layers and the possible addition of grey material. “We had developed a system of clips at the top and bottom in order to stretch out these canopy-like objects and, depending on the degree of opacity we wanted, we had to double or triple them, or possibly add grey material between each of the elements in order to obtain maximum opacity.”²⁶ Secondly, there were the picture walls (about fifty of them) hanging about 0.5 cm from the floor. These were less prominent.

[…] at points in the sequence where we had to present paintings, a work by a particular artist, or when we had projections, we opted for another kind of wall. Either we added metallic grey fabric, sandwiched between two mesh screens, or we hung in front of the mesh partitions a white PVC panel or a 3mm Medite panel on which we could fix paintings or that we could use to create a more intimate closed space.²⁷

Thirdly, we can consider the permanent picture wall of the existing set-up and the heavy picture walls as another kind of surface, as for example on the western side (Rue Beaubourg).

The screens served not only to order the spaces, but also to hang paintings (Fig. 7). This sometimes caused problems:

[…] the endless discussions with Bernard [Blistène] – wall or no wall, were we going to hang a work on a metal grid –, and there a concession was made which was that the works were hung on very light picture walls, you could almost carry them in your hands, we were not really talking about walls, they were themselves suspended.²⁸

Fixing paintings on hanging partitions gave the museum directors a few problems. Problems regarding proper presentation of the work, of fragility and safety. The white partitions fixed on the grids were light, the mesh was still visible and interfered with the reading of the work. We had to make a very strong case to the museum management and some works were refused us, but in the end we were able to present a large number of paintings in the exhibition.²⁹

Visitor behaviour and the opacity of the screens

Finally, the modulation of opacity by means of lighting and layering played a vital role, making these screens appear or disappear. “A space constructed using hanging metal screens could become disruptive for visitors when the visual superposition of the screens caused them to vibrate”³⁰ (Fig. 8). Also, mesh patterns were sometimes projected onto the floor and zones were melodramatically lit, or again not at all.

The behaviour of visitors was thus influenced to a large extent by these screens, “[…] their varying degree of opacity encouraged mobility of the gaze, directly or allusively prompting comparisons.”³¹ One could be visually attracted by a light, a barely revealed silhouette. Visitors were surprised by the project’s general visibility. They could see different zones, looking through the layers. The more dense the grids, the less visitors could see through them, but they nevertheless afforded a view of what lay further ahead in the exhibition (Fig. 9).

Visitors entered the exhibition via a closed tunnel, accompanied by the sound of blood, and entered 2,000 square metres of vibrant, grey and dense space. A succession of juxtaposed screens with objects offered perspectives, discoveries, unexpected views. Light played a major role in the exhibition. It made the grids come alive, animated them and marked out the different zones.³²

A break with the public

There remains an opposition between the intellectual position of certain visitors and that of the project team. “We want this exhibition about complexity to nevertheless remain simple to visit.”³³ And yet, “[…] if you don’t have a doctorate in everything, you don’t go and see Les Immatériaux.”³⁴ This led to a discrepancy between the visitor behaviour that the design team were counting on and that of the real visitors. Indeed, the dérive [drift] Lyotard was hoping for was expressed in the exhibition layout by erratic paths, and a sense of disorientation. “A very large number of visitors complained strongly to the security agents and to the reception staff that they were unable to find their way around the exhibition, and in particular that they couldn’t find the exit or the toilets.”³⁵ This situation was one of the reasons why this exhibition was bitterly criticised, and why visitors sometimes left almost as soon as they had entered it.

“Nevertheless, the main thing that people will remember, after all, are of course the erratic exhibition tracks […] [that] have little likelihood of appearing in the after-the-event statements gathered about the exhibition, except in the general, radical form of ‘I didn’t understand a thing.’”³⁶ A general incomprehension emerges: this is not what I was expecting. “The arrangement of those hanging ‘semi-screens’ enabled visitors to choose ‘semi-freely’ their path through the exhibition. This is not imposed, but induced.” ³⁷ Visitors were expected to have a sense of space and be able to play on it, to understand the implicit paths, but what occurred was the opposite.

[…] the appearance of freedom, which in reality implies increased dependence with regard to the architecture because of the lack of personal mastery of space, leads to the risk of getting lost, which itself was transformed into anxiety: not everybody gets to drift. And the anxiety, projected inwards, turns into humiliation, via a feeling of their own incompetence, or is projected onto the organisers (“they”), in aggressiveness, via denigration of the cause of the unease.³⁸

The reactions to this visitor disorientation were mainly negative. This even caused problems for the security team, who pointed out the lack of signage and the non-legibility of the section titles, in white on the mesh.

The only visitors who were prepared to play the game of disorientation were intellectuals, artists and philosophers.³⁹ “In the maze of postmodernity, minds wander, the better to find themselves.”⁴⁰ This phrase only seems meaningful if it is addressed to those capable of distancing themselves from the classical codes of exhibitions, in order to let themselves get lost and enjoy the experience: intellectuals.

Conclusion

In the end, we can argue that the hanging screens in the exhibition Les Immatériaux influenced the behaviour of visitors by their varying opacities, and that they constituted a literal translation of Lyotard’s initial intentions regarding immateriality. The context of these screens’ production, delivered in panel form, and of their installation, using the building’s modular ceiling, allowed great latitude in the conception of the exhibition design. Their arrangement in space and their transparency caused disorientation for visitors, which they did not always experience as a dérive but more as a loss of bearings. However, their transparency did allow a somewhat blurred visibility of the different exhibition zones, and thus to change the public’s usual perceptions.

Les Immatériaux marked the history of exhibitions, but also that of exhibition design. The hanging screens were part of this innovation, as was the audio headset. This exhibition format opened the days to many others, by putting the exhibition curator in the position of author.

This initiative opened the way to other philosophers, such as Bruno Latour who, twenty years later, curated Iconoclash, dedicated to the various modes of representation (Karlsruhe, 2002), and then Making Things Public (Karlsruhe, 2005); or Tzvetan Todorov with the exhibition on “Les Lumières” at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in 2006.⁴¹

Les Immatériaux was a real revolution, an event that people are still talking about thirty years later. And yet the show did not make much of a lasting impression on those who saw it. The only way of going back over its traces was to be found in the basement of the Centre Georges-Pompidou, where the buried memory of its history could help me better understand this paradoxical fascination.

Going through the Centre Georges-Pompidou archives, trying to connect the random elements, I had the feeling I was seeing a mise-en-abyme of the exhibition. I was lost, I wandered as did visitors at the time. Dozens of boxes of archives, the countless dossiers and letters that lay before me, could be untangled only by following a precise aspect: the hanging screens. That enabled me to find order in the disorder, and to put together what for me was scattered, putting dates with figures, via correspondences and sketches on tablecloths.

I would like to thank Jean Charlier, who helped me in this archive research, but also Andreas Broeckmann, who guided and supported me, and Katia Lafitte, who at the time was a display specialist working along the design team, without whom I could never have had access to some very valuable information.

Bibliography