Art is never
the object alone.
Anne-Laure Lemaitre shapes places
where makers and viewers belong.
In our current overexposed world, we all have somewhat become public personas. We are perceived and defined as the curated and edited version of ourselves we ‘put out there,’ but are also seen as the mirror of this perception in how it reflects on others and our surroundings.
The pressure to become ‘a product’, to remain ‘on brand’ and to be consistent with a simplified, easily graspable narrative and messaging of who we are and what we are about forces human complexity to the side. Our inexpressible core, which evolves with time and experience, and our external, perceived and visible self collide in sometimes frictional ways.
In a time where clarity often requires over-simplification, what are we when removed from our deliberately outlined core identifiers? What defines the various pieces of ourselves in front of and away from a permanent outside gaze? How can our plurality be brought further into existence and accepted by ourselves and others?
In the Margins examines who artists are beyond their projected being or core definition. Whether exploring new subjects, compositions, creative means or bringing to life intimate stories, In the Margins’ only premise is to offer a space for experimentation, vulnerability, redefinition of practice and self.
Throughout the show, one will encounter familiar and new voices in slightly displaced contexts. These genuine perspectives remain at times very close to the artist’s usual practice but at times also bring utterly fringe or confidential interests and topics to light. All works aim to expand in some capacity the viewer’s insight in each artist’s understanding of the world, of their craft and of themselves. Each piece comes accompanied with a sound snippet in which their maker speaks of the presented work and its importance or meaning.
An exercise in eclecticism and pluralism, In the Margins is not a survey nor a linearly curated show but moreso a humble gathering of fringes, one-offs, premises and try-outs fueled by an appetite to go beyond pre-established scripts.
Photo: Alexander Laurent Rubalcava
Anne-Laure Lemaitre is a curator, writer, and producer based in New York, Paris, and the Nova Scotia wilderness. Her practice begins by questioning a territory: its physical and emotional dimensions, its history, its context, its belonging, before turning to the art it calls for. This orientation has shaped a body of work spanning the most experimental corners of the emerging art world and leading corporations and public institutions.
Many artists she has worked with early in their careers have since gone on to significant critical and market recognition. Those relationships rarely end with the exhibition. For several, she remains a resource: someone to think with, exchange with, workshop with.
For nearly twenty years, she has worked across scales and contexts: from intimate solo exhibitions at artist-run spaces to permanent public commissions, from single-artist career conversations to cultural programs spanning five continents. Her practice is built around the specific rather than the repeatable, treating the space, the institution, the sidewalk, and the online environment each as curatorial material in its own right.
Lemaitre writes regularly about art for catalogues, publications, and for herself. Her writing, whether commissioned or not, tends toward the felt rather than the prescribed: a belief that how we speak about a practice, and what it does to us, shapes how it is seen and received.
Intentional art programs · Site-specific commissions
Curatorial strategy · International practice
Art In Context is a curatorial production practice whose work ranges from international public commissions, corporate collections and multi-venue cultural strategies to ongoing collaborations with artists, brands and cultural institutions.
Every project begins with the same questions: what does this place need, what story belongs here, and who should tell it. That orientation shapes everything from artist selection and fabrication to the logic of how a program holds together in one location or across multiple sites.
Drawing on nearly twenty years of work, Art In Context has built the infrastructure to operate anywhere and at any scale. An extensive network of creative partners allows it to move from a single commission to a coordinated program spanning dozens of sites without losing the specificity that makes a project land. Art In Context works worldwide.