Dé(s)règlements: Student-Curated Exhibition on Protocol-Based Art in Rennes

The 2002 edition of the annual student-curated exhibition at Galerie Art et essai, Université Rennes 2, titled Dé(s)règlements, Protocoles en situation, ran from May 15 to June 21. Organized by master's students in the "Métiers de l'exposition" program, the show examined the role of protocol in emerging artistic practices of the 2000s. Ten works by artists including Marta de Gonzalo and Publio Pérez Prieto, Marika Bührmann, Minerva Cuevas, Lara Almarcegui, Devora Neumark, Nick Gee, and the Hohenbüchler sisters engaged viewers through participatory contracts. Gonzalo and Pérez Prieto distributed a giant puzzle defining "Terrorism" across the city, requiring participants to return pieces by the exhibition's end. Bührmann's Micro-situations involved impromptu encounters, while Cuevas's Campagne Égalité replaced Evian's brand name with "Égalité" on bottles. Critic Paul Ardenne praised the thematic coherence but noted a lack of historical awareness, pointing out that many protocols echoed earlier works: Neumark's collective sewing resembled David Medalla's A Stitch in Time (1969), and the Hohenbüchlers' social collaborations mirrored Michel Séméniako's Portraits négociés (1983) or Art-Seine TRI D. Ardenne argued the exhibition framed these practices as groundbreaking when they actually continued a tradition of contextual art since the 1960s.