Chaimowicz, Camille Marc
Marc Camille Chaimowicz was born in post-war Paris (1947), but moved in childhood to the suburban new town of Stevenage, England in 1954. He studied painting at Ealing School of Art and later at Camberwell College of Arts in London. After a visit to Paris in 1968, Chaimowicz abandoned work as painter, overwhelmed by the complexity of the painting he had seen and magnetised by the socio-political ferment of Paris at that time. At the Slade School of Fine Art he began to make performances and installations, but his first ambitious and extrovert manifestations culminated again in a reassessment of the essential nature of his activity as an artist, a retreat into privacy. Chaimowicz began to draw on the imagery of his own intimate world which can be glimpsed but never fully grasped by any but its creator. His use of the camera was personal and specific. The images were carefully constructed, cultured, synthetic, giving substance to the fugitive and insubstantial: the play of shadow on a wall, sunlight filtered through a gauze curtain, the dip of a flower stem, the meeting point of object and image on a mirrored surface. The artist, author and subject of the work was a discreet presence.
After his first degree at the Camberwell School of art Marc Camille Chaimowicz went to the Slade School of Fine Art at University College, London for his M.A in painting. After tumulus questioning he there decided to cease painting… Thus begun his redefinition of practice in two areas of new activity which were then attractive partly because these were, as then unnamed but soon to be called Installation and Performance. This then young artist, suddenly found himself, perhaps to his bemusement, somewhat startled by the degree of international attention his work was attracting.
Ten years on, and culminating in the showing of Partial Eclipse at the Tate Gallery in 1981, he stopped working with Performance and, perhaps preferring the shadowlands, withdrew to work on a major bookwork ‘Cafe Du Reve’ which was co-published by Edition du Regard, Paris and Thames & Hudson, London in 1984.
He was in parallel increasingly engaged in questioning the role of the artist and this resulted in a wide range of projects within the realm of design and the decorative arts. Materials have included leather, glass, plywood, velvet, lead and printed fabrics. The Arts Council Four Rooms exhibition shown at Liberty’s and elsewhere is such an example. As do voluntary exiles, he began a reappraisal of painting in the mid-eighties and this remains of central concern. The one activity informs the other yet they remain in tangent. He enjoys the dialectic between the Fine Arts and Design.
He contributes currently to the M.F.A. Course At Reading and is visiting consultant at L’Ecole National des Beaux Arts, Dijon.
A dozen monographs have been published and Public Collections include:
The Arts Council of Great Britain
The British Council
The Tate Gallery
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
The National Gallery of Australia
Le fonds National D’Art Contemporain, Paris.
FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon.
updated June 2022
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Interview of Marc Chaimowicz
View the interview transcript here
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Exhibitions:
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1970
Random Landscape Approximation (nine Venues in London – unspecified)
Banquet (Camden Arts Centre)1971
Sweetness, Sigi Krauss Gallery, London – installation1972
Enough Tyranni, Serpentine Gallery, London
Celebration? Realife, Inaugural Show, Gallery House, London1977
Galleria Cavallino, Venice
Dream…an anecdote, Nigel Greenwood Gallery, London1978
Galleria Cannaviello, Rome and Milan1979
Screens…, Nigel Greenwood Inc. Ltd., London1980
Partial Eclipse, De Appel Gallery, Amsterdam1981
Maquettes…, Nigel Greenwood Inc. Ltd., London1982
Galerie H. Air, Vienna
Galleria Cavallino, Venice1983
12 Decor Textiles, Galerie Bertin, Lyon
Past Imperfect, 1972-82, Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool; Orchard Gallery, Derry
John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, and Leeds City Art Gallery (1984)1984
Six Works, Musee d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva and Le Consortium, Dijon1985
Cafe du Reve, Galerie de France, Paris
Recent paintings and sketches, Nigel Greenwood Gallery1986
Galerie Optica, Montreal
Centre de Gravure, Geneva
Eric Franck Gallery, Geneva1987
Autour de cinq Paravents, Musee des Beaux Arts, Dijon
Chapelle des Brigittines, Bruxelles (A British Season)1988
Recent Drawings and Prints, Robert Steele Gallery, Adelaide
Chemins de Croix, Pour l’Art Contemporain, Bourbon-Lancy1989
Fine and Applied Art, The Showroom, London1990
Oeuvres sur papier et sur toile, Galerie Gill Favre, Lyon1990
Cinq paravents, Musee historique des tissus, Lyon
Oevres sur Papier, Art Concept Galerie, Nice
Beaux Arts et Arts Appliques, Musse de Cosne sur Loire1992
Musee Victor-Chareton, Bourgoin-Jallieu
Galerie Joseph Dutertre, Rennes1993
The Warsaw Suite, Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw1994
Peintures & Objets, Le Consortium Centre D’Art Contemporain, Dijon
Peintures & Objets, Le Quartier, Centre D’Art Contemporain, Quimper1996
Peintures & Objets, Joseph Dutertre Galerie, Rennes
Au Quotidien des choses, Interface, Apartment Gallery, Dijon1997
La Suite de Varsovie de Marc Camille Chaimowicz, FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon1998
Painting Amongst Other Things, L’Artotheque de Nantes
The British School at Rome2000
Celebration? Realife Revisited, Cabinet, London
Galerie Joseph Dutertre, Rennes2002
Ikon, Bimringham La Chapelle de l’H-Dieu de Cluny2003
Cabinet, London2004
Partial Eclipse…, Galerie Giti Nourbakhsch, Berlin
Partial Eclipse…, Studio Lucy Mc Kenzie, GlasgowGROUP EXHIBITIONS
1971
Waste? Piece 3, Art Spectrum, Alexandra Palace, London1972
Between Revolt and Revolution, City Museum, Bologna
Genug Tyranei, Second Graz Art Fair, Austria1973
Biennale de Paris, (British Audio Visual Section)
Fluxus Tour, MOMA, Oxford1975
Inaugural show – AIR Gallery, London
Sur les Marches du Palais, with S Potter and C Tisdall, AIR Gallery, London1977
10th Paris Biennale des Jeunes, Paris1978
International Performance Festival, Osterreichische, Kunstverein, Vienna
Hayward Annual, Hayward Gallery, London
Rites and Roles, Arnolfini, Bristol1979
Un Certain Art Anglais, ARC, Paris, (British Council)
Galerie Nachst St.Stephan, Vienna1981
Photography as Medium, British Council touring exhibition
3rd Tolly Cobbold Eastern Arts Exhibition (prize winner)
Perspective ’81, Basel Art Fair, Basel
Partial Eclipse, Artists and Performance, Tate Gallery, London1982
Paris 1960-80, Museum of the 20th Century, Vienna
Works on Paper from the Modern Collection, Tate Gallery, London1984
British Art Show 2…Old Allegiances and New Directions 1979-84, City Art Gallery Birmingham and ACGB tour
Four Rooms, Arts Coucil touring exhibition, Libertys, London and national tour
An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture, Museum of Modern Art, New York1986
Four Rooms, The Adelaide Festival, Adelaide1987
Drapeau d’Artists, Artists Flags, Musee d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva
Under the Sign of Saturn, Nigel Greenwood Gallery, London
Tandem, Creation/Industrie, Musee de Romans1988
Art in the Garden, Glasgow Garden Festival
La Double transparence, CNAP, Paris and tour1989
Prospect ’89, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt1991
Works on Paper, Nigel Greenwood Gallery, London
Le Consortium Collectionne, Chateau d’Oiron1992
Creer avec la Tradition, Centre Culturel de L’Yonne, Auxerre
The Furnished Landscape, Crafts Council Gallery, London
Nigel Greenwood London1993
Creer avec la Tradition, Musee Municipal de Nevers1994
l’hotel bouhier de savigny, recoit le FRAC, Dijon1996
Morceaux Choisis – 2, Espace des Arts, Chalon sur Saone1997
13th International Biennial of Small Objects, Murka Sobota, Slovenia
Museum for Konkrete Kunst, Ingolstadt, German1998
Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979,
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Lovecraft, South London Gallery, London
Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979,
The Mack, Vienna
Artists From The British School at Rome, Villa Crispi, Naples
Percezione Angolare, Change, Rome
Acquisitions 1998, L’Artoteque, Nantes
Biennale Dei Parchi Natura e Ambiente, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome
Le Consortium Dijon, L’Usine Dijon
50M3, Interface, Dijon2000
Live In Your Head, Concept & Experiment in Britain, The Whitechapel Art Gallery, London2001
Live In Your Head, Museu do Chiado, Lisbon
Nadia Wallis et Marc C. Chaimowicz, Galerie Joseph Duterte, Rennes
Art I Accio El Museu D’Art Contemporani de Barcelona
Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo
Bankside Browser, Tate Gallery of Modern Art
Portrait D’Une Collection Rapide, Interface, Dijon
Village Disco, Cabinet, London2002
Jean Cocteau, Norwich Gallery, Norwich School of Art & Design
The Rule of Hospitality, Galerie Neu, Berlin (curated by Cabinet, London)
New Religious Art, 1992-2002, Henry Peacock Gallery, London
St. Petrischnee, Migros Museum, Zuric2004
It’s all an illusion, migros museum, Zurich
Jean Cocteau, Angel Row, Nottingham
Like beads on an Abacus Designed to Calculate Infinity, Rockwell, London -
Videography:
1971
Sweetness (installation, Sigi Krauss Gallery, London)1972
Celebration? Realife,(Inaugural Show, Gallery House, London)
Enough Tyranni, (Serpentine Gallery, London)1974
Table Tableau, (Garage, London; touring to Turin, Bologna and Rome)1976
Fade
Meas1977
Doubts, a Sketch for Video Camera and Audience1982
Partial Views of An Interior -
Artist works:
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Artist assets:
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Quotes:
"Chaimowicz exhibited a number of video works, installation and performance artworks that included video as a central component. He was a productive artist during the early LVA period, participating in the relevant video exhibitions. His writing around the conceptual aspects of his work in the LVA catalogue of 1978, p. 9 dealt with the intuitive and existential qualities of video technologies - video took a physical role in his work, the camera as performer and an 'engaged' element." - J.Hatfield
"..to try to integrate ideas of the counter-culture with practice. This was naturally my choice and was why I was drawn away from the claustrophobia of pre-existent forms towards activities that were then as yet unnamed or ill formed like an emergent language." - Marc Camille Chaimowicz, 1999, Live in Your Head, Concept and Experiment In Britain, 1965-75, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 4 February - 2 April 2000, p. 56
