The Work of my Dreams

Baptiste Roca, Château Capion 2019

Montpellier Contemporain and Château Capion in Aniane renew their original partnership to support emerging artists and those trained in the region. Following Chloé Viton’s residency and exhibition, Primitive metamorphoses, in 2018, Baptiste Roca is the second artist to benefit from this collaboration between a public, contemporary art institution and a private vineyard. After a month-long residency at Château Capion last April, Baptiste Roca presents the exhibition, The Work of My Dreams, which will be open from July 12 through to September 8 (every day from 10am to 6.30pm).

Baptiste Roca was born in 1992. They live and work in Montreuil. A graduate of Montpellier Art School (MOCO ESBA), their work focuses on what, from near or from afar, may make or constitute art. Their understanding of “making art” resides in bringing together gestures from various fields (building, bureaucratic or fictional) into an artistic context.

By bringing to light this handiwork, they question the notion of authorship and, more widely still, artistic identity today.

This gives rise to forms, which often veer towards irony. Performance allows them to test, shake up and short-circuit certain conventions that have emerged from artistic institutions.

Equally, Roca addresses the exhibition format itself by adopting a distanced point of view in order to challenge their own position as artist.

The Work of My Dreams is a title to be taken literally. The artist has produced objects that may or may not belong to the field of art, that have come from their dreams, which find themselves here in a whole new space to write a new history. Exploring their subconscious allows them to create works that the artist would never have imagined in real life, and creates a discrepancy between what one desires and what is.

The production company Talk is Charm presents a documentary film that illustrates what a first residency and first moment of production may be for a young artist.

Opens on Thursday, July 11 at 6pm.