Panorama 18 at Le Fresnoy Presents 50 Artists in Theme-Free Exhibition

The annual Panorama exhibition at Le Fresnoy, a school and art center blending image and sound practices in the digital age, opened its 18th edition on November 22, 2016. Curated by Laurent Le Bon, the show features around 50 emerging and established artists. Le Bon adopted a radical approach: he neither selected the artists nor the works, and refused to impose a theme, titling the exhibition simply "Panorama 18." The opening was attended by Fresnoy director Alain Fleischer, alongside friends including Dominique Païni, Jean de Loisy, and José-Manuel Gonçalvès. The exhibition highlights cinema's enduring influence, as seen in Baptiste Rabichon's camera obscura caravan capturing seaside negatives, Paul Heintz's facade installation referencing a real non-functional building at 145 rue La Fayette in Paris, Mathias Isouard's vibrating aluminum sheet that performs its own musical composition, and Mathilde Lavenne's reactivation of Edison's phonograph, which historically sparked debates about artistic development. Lavenne's work questions the existence of a "digital beyond." The exhibition as a whole explores what art might be in a post-digital era.