# Tatiana Trouvé

Tatiana Trouvé (born 4 August, 1968) is a French-Italian visual artist based in Paris. She works in large-scale installations, sculptures, and drawings. Trouvé's artworks explore the relationship between fiction and reality, the temporal nature of memory, and the dimensionality of space – physically and mentally. In 2020, Trouvé was awarded France's Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for her contribution to culture.

## Early life and education

Born in Cosenza, Italy to an Italian mother and a French father, Trouvé spent her early childhood in Italy. From ages 8 to 15 she lived in Dakar, Senegal, where her father taught architecture.
After studying at the Villa Arson in Nice, France, where she graduated in 1989, she spent two years in residence at De Ateliers (formally Atelier '63) in the Netherlands, where she studied under Stanley Brouwn, before eventually settling in Paris in 1995. In Paris, she worked briefly as a guard at the Centre Pompidou.
During her education, she discovered the works of Alighiero Boetti, Eva Hesse, Edward Kienholz, Lousie Bourgeois, Bruce Nauman, Ed Ruscha, Marcel Duchamp, and Agnes Martin, and was drawn to their invention of forms, concepts, and ideas that "depart[ed] from concrete experience". She also finds influence in writers, often incorporating their language into her artworks. Some examples include Fernado Pessoa, Jorge Luis Borges, and Italo Calvino.

## Notable series
### Sculpture series
#### (1997–2007) Bureau d’activités implicites

The Bureau d’activités implicites (Bureau of Implicit Activities) was produced over the course of ten years from 1997 to 2007. The project began when Trouvé reflected on her legitimacy as an artist despite her lack of resources, visibility, and a growing collection of employment rejection letters. Compiling CVs, job application materials, identification papers, preparatory drawings, written texts, office supplies, and more, Trouvé began the production of the Bureau d’activités implicites which developed into 13 ‘modules', archiving the development of her career as an artist. Through the creation of these architectural modules, Trouvé constructed an administrative space to house her creative efforts as well as her clerical attempts to adherence to the red tape of the art world.
Notable modules include the Reminisence Module (1999), Secrets & Lies (2003), the Archive Modules, and the Administrative Module (1997–2002). The administrative module is the most significant of this work, as it regroups all the documents that attest to her life in social and administrative terms (CV, grant applications, cover letters, job applications...)

#### (2000–Ongoing) Polders

Since 2000, Trouvé has been constructing maquettes, or doll houses, which emerge from the universe of "implicit activities" that comprise her series Polders. The series title refers to the Dutch term for land reclaimed by water. These large-scale maquettes take the form of deserted workplaces, recording studios, or unoccupied desks, often viewable from windows or mirrors preventing physical accessibility to the space. They represent that which has always been there, waiting to be recuperated or reorganized. Placed on the ground or fixed to the wall, these items adapt themselves to the physical exhibition space, and at the same time they suggest the existence of a different space or environment. These Polders look to occupy the space to parasite it. "It is with the goal of reconstructing the spaces in which I had been or in which something happened: reconstructions of space, of memory, in the form of maquettes" – Tatiana Trouvé.

### Drawing series
#### (2005–Ongoing) Intraquillity

The Intranquillity series includes approximately forty works. Using source images from her archive of architectural and design magazines and her own photographs, Trouvé creates liminal environments reminiscent of a proposed architecture but denying its concrete structure. Composed of industrial and domestic objects and lacking a true interior or exterior, the drawings exist within the fringe of reality and time, leaving the viewer to oscillate between grounded renderings and disorienting picture planes.
The title of this series comes from the invented word by Fernando Pessoa. As Trouvé defines it, "not being tranquil but not being annoyed either".

#### (2020) From March to May

From March to May was executed during the first COVID-19 lockdown in March and April 2020. The series features 56 drawings atop the front pages of newspapers from all around the world with texts that recount the globalized anxiety of the pandemic. Trouvé adorns these surfaces with drawings informed by the layout of the page. The common imagery found within Trouvé’s drawings invites contemplation and mediates the unease found within the text underneath. The work is presented as a set of 56 drawings and was displayed at Gagosian Gallery in 2021 and the Centre Pompidou in 2022.

## Recognition

* (2024) Kistefos Sculpture of the year
* (2020) Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
* (2019) Rosa Schapie Kunstpreis
* (2014) ACACIA Prize
* (2007) Prix Marcel Duchamp Prize
* (2005) ISCP Residency
* (2001) Foundation Pernod Ricard Prize
* (1990) Atelier 63', Haarlem, Netherlands

## Collections (selected)
### Public Collections

* By Art Matters, Hangzhou, China
* Collection CAPC Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, France.
* FAMM: Femmes Artistes du Musée de Mougins, France.
* FNAC Fonds national d'art contemporain (CNAP), Paris, France.
* Fond Cantonal d’Art contemporain de Geneva, Switzerland
* Fonds Départemental d’Art Contemporain du Val de Marne (MAC VAL), Vitry-sur-Seine, France.
* Frac Ile-de-France, Paris, France. Frac Aquitaine, Bordeaux, France.
* Frac Limousin, Limoges, France. Frac Provence-Alpes-Côtes d'Azur, Marseille, France.
* Frac Poitou-Charentes, Angoulême, France.
* He Art Museum, Shunde, China.
* Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.
* Kistefos, Jevnaker, Norway.
* MAMCO, Geneva, Switzerland.
* MAXXI Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI Secolo, Rome, Italy.
* Migros Museum, Zürich, Switzerland.
* Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France.
* Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France.
* Musée Régional d’Art Contemporain, Languedoc-Roussillon, Sérignan, France.
* MUSEION Museum of modern and contemporary art, Bolzano, Italy.
* Museo del Novecento, Milan, Italy.
* Museo Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico.
* Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, TX.
* Red Brick Museum, Beijing, China.
* Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
* Wroclaw Contemporary Museum, Wroclaw, Poland.

### Private Foundations

* CIAC Colección Isabel y Agustín Coppel, Mexico City, Mexico.
* Collection Pinault – Bourse de Commerce, Paris, France.
* Fondation d'entreprise Louis Vuitton, Paris, France.
* FWA Fondation For Women Artists, Antwerp, Belgium.
* Lafayette Anticipations – Fondation d'entreprise Galeries Lafayette, Paris, France.

## Exhibitions (selected)

* 1997: Tatiana Trouvé, Centre national d’art contemporain de la Villa Arson, Nice, France.
* 2002: Polders, curated by Nicolas Bourriaud and Jérome Sans, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France.
* 2003: Aujourd'hui, hier, ou il y a longtemps, curated by François Poisay, CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux, France.
* 2003: Clandestini / Clandestines, curated by Francesco Bonami, 50th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy.
* 2004: Juste assez coupable pour être heureuse, curated by Christian Bernard, MAMCO, Geneva, Switzerland.
* 2005: Djinns, curated by Sylvie Boulanger, Cneai, Chatou, France.
* 2006: Printemps de septembre, curated by Jean-Marc Bustamante and Pascal Pic, Les Abattoirs, Toulouse, France.
* 2006: La Force de l'Art, Grand Palais, Paris, France (Ricard Prize).
* 2007: Times Snares, Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Miami, United States.
* 2007: Think with the Senses – Feel with the mind, 52nd Biennale de Venice, Arsenale, Venice, Italy.
* 2007: Double Bind, curated by Marc-Olivier Wahler, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France.
* 2007: Tatiana Trouvé, curated by Eric Magion, Centre national d'Art contemporain de la Villa Arson, Nice, France.
* 2008: Density of Time, König Galerie, Berlin, Germany.
* 2008: 4 between 3 and 2, curated by Jean-Pierre Boraz, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France (Marcel Duchamp Prize 2007).
* 2009: A Stay between Enclosure and Space, Migros Museum, Zurich, Switzerland.
* 2010: Il Grande Ritratto, Kunsthaus Graz, Austria.
* 2010: Tatiana Trouvé, South London Gallery, London, England.
* 2010: Tatiana Trouvé, Gagosian, New York City, NY, United States.
* 2011: Éloge du doute, Punta della Dogana, François Pinault Foundation, Venice, Italy.
* 2013: I cento titoli in 36 524 giorni (The hundred titles in 36,524 days), Gagosian, Rome, Italy.
* 2014: L'Écho le plus long (The Longest Echo), MAMCO, Geneva, Switzerland.
* 2015: Biennale d'art contemporain de Lyon, Lyon, France.
* 2015: Studies for Desire Lines, Gagosian, Park and 75, New York, NY, United States.
* 2015: Desire Lines, Public Art Fund commission. Doris C. Freedman Plaza, Central Park, New York, United States.
* 2016: From Alexandrinenstrasse to the Unnamed Path, König Galerie, Berlin, Germany.
* 2016: L’Éclat de L’Absence, Red Brick Museum, Beijing, China.
* 2017: BIENALSUR, Bienal Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo de América del Sur, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
* 2017: Yokohama Triennale, Yokohama, Japan.
* 2017: A Good Neighbor, Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, Turkey.
* 2017: Avalanche, Elevation 1049, Gstaad, Switzerland.
* 2018: The Great Atlas of Disorientation, Petach Tikva Museum of Art, Petach Tikva, Israel.
* 2018: Le Numerose Irregolaritá, Villa Medici, Rome, Italy.
* 2018: Tatiana Trouvé, Gagosian, Rome, Italy.
* 2019: On the Eve of Never Leaving, Gagosian, Beverly Hills, CA, United States.
* 2021: The Residents, Afterness, Artangel, Orford Ness, Suffolk, UK.
* 2021: From March to May, Gagosian, New York, NY, United States.
* 2022: Le grand atlas de la désorientation, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France.