Flashes: Contemporary Trends from the Cartier Foundation Flashes is spotlights the work of 26 artists from the collection

of the Fondation Cartier in France. Before moving its present home in Paris, the Cartier Foundation had its headquarters in Joy-en-Josas, where the sculpture garden and studios offered artists the chance to work in situ on individual projects. Such an exhibition a show of works from a corporate collection is necessarily fragmentary, and exposes the purchasing strageties of the concern in question. The Cartier Foundation that had also given us the exception exhibition of photographs by Francesca Woodman earlier this year is now housed on the Boulevard Raspail in Paris, in a building designed by Jean Novelle. The Foundation supports ongoing working relationships with the artists in which it invests: an eclectic group not selected neither in accordance with stylistic or period preference. As there is no physical site where all the works in the collection are permanently gathered and exhibited, the works from the Foundation circulate in international exhibitions such as this one. The particular selection was made for the Lisbon venue, curated by Herv Chands, the present curator of the collection, together with Margarida Vieiga, director of the Centro Cultural de Belm in Lisbon. Focussing in particular on installations or photographic works, the exhibition establishes a loose grid of connections between the selected artists. The outcome of this selection is uneven. At its best arguably, in the strong selection of works by Matthew Barney; in the idiosyncratic drawings and sculptures by Marcus Raetz, in the well known series of photographs, the Ballad of Sexual Dependency, by Nan Goldin; or in the recent video piece by Bill Viola the exhibition is both visually and intellectually challenging. The connections say between the works of Vija Celmins, Thomas Ruff and Tatsuo Miyajima, or between Jeff Wall, Yukio Nakagawa and Thomas Demand; or between Nan Goldin, Wolfgang Tillmans and Nobuyoshi Araki are loosely drawn rather than didactially forced upon the viewer. But some of the works o show seem to serve simply as tokens for a collection of socalled big names. This is especially the case in the scrappy installation by Tony Oursler, the overstated steel submarineby Panamarenko, and the inexplicable emphasis given to Raymond Hains, claimed in the catalogue to be one of the greatest contemporary artists today. The exhibition is strongest in its focus on photographic works: if Gabriel Orozco and Jeff Wall are under represented, Wolfgang Tillmans and Nobuyoshi Araki both of whose work sometimes slips dangerously into the realm of the glibly fashionable here look disturbing and compelling. Sophie Calles three

photographic works always exploring the fine edge between narcissism and fiction simply whet the appetite for more, as do David Hammons quirky three works using a combination found materials in witty ways that query the relationship between the mainstream and the marginal. Ruth Rosengarten Flashes: Contemporary Trends from the Cartier Foundation Centro Cultural de Belm, Lisbon. Published in Viso, (?) July 1999.