Cady Noland's First French Solo Show at Rennes 2 and Frac Bretagne

Despite Cady Noland's withdrawal from the art world and refusal to license images, the master's program 'Métiers et arts de l'exposition' at Université Rennes 2, in collaboration with Frac Bretagne, mounted the artist's first solo exhibition in France from March 7 to April 21, 2013. The show featured nine works borrowed from private and public collections, mainly from Belgium and the Netherlands. The accompanying publication is the first French-language monograph on Noland. To circumvent the artist's ban on image reproduction, the catalog uses drawings by an art school student interpreting Noland's works. The article argues that Noland's critique of 1980s consumerist and 'psychopathic' America has paradoxically failed, as her work now commands record prices and resides in major collections far from leftist circles. Her practice, however, is more complex: she uses ruins produced by capitalist society—objects and press clippings—as signifiers that are both trivial and violent. From their arrangement, she developed a distinctive style, readable as both a reflection of the sociopolitical context of the late 20th century and a precise awareness of art history and current events.