The exhibition cycle entitled Un plan simple (A Simple Plan) was specifically designed for the Maison Populaire. Not so much for the space in the sense of in situ or contextual productions, but above all in relation to this space, in the way this exhibition hall is envisaged, viewed, and used on a daily basis by the public. Indeed, the art center, which also serves as the entrance hall to the Maison Populaire, is a place of passage: many people pass through it regularly on their way to other activities and, in doing so, take a look at the exhibitions.

The exhibitions in Un plan simple stem from this observation: an exhibition can be viewed in passing and thus understood as a frontal image. The three exhibitions organized by Le Bureau/ aim to examine different ways of constructing an image: perspective, stage, and screen. These “symbolic forms,” laden with references, represent structures that have shaped cultural history. Here, they will each serve as a scenographic tool to create a two-dimensional image. Visitors who choose to enter will be able to wander among the works.

As the first interpretation of A Simple Plan, Perspective explores a mode of visual perception. The exhibition is constructed frontally according to a succession of planes organized from a single point of view. From a distance, it offers an image that can be taken in as a whole, where all the planes join or overlap. Closer up, as one moves among the works, one discovers the successive planes, as well as certain parts hidden within the whole.

Perspective, which offers two simultaneous experiences—the exhibition as a two-dimensional image and as a penetrable device—is based on two references: perspective as a rational invention in the history of representation, and the experimental hangings of manifestos and educational exhibitions of the early 20th century. The first refers to a mode of organizing reality that emerged during the Renaissance, which places Man at the center so that his point of view orders the theater of the world. The second reference is part of an era in which images have multiplied exponentially and in which it is important above all to organize a way of moving among them, no longer in relation to a fixed point of view, but for an eye in perpetual motion.

The works chosen for Perspective play with and subvert the exhibition's frontal scenography.

Decompositions of representation, Gwenneth Boelens' A Whole Fragment (2007) and Adam Putnam's Sundial (2005) create illusory effects through projection devices: the work is first perceived as a fragment before being apprehended in its unity. Similarly, Alexander Gutke's Lighthouse (2006) is the projection of a geometric surface rotating in space, creating an illusion of movement through a simple succession of still images.

The construction of representation is also one of the themes explored by the exhibition. Based on the floor plan of her former apartment, Cécile Desvignes' Les angles (2002) treats the representation of architecture in three dimensions. As for Jérémie Gindre, La Voie (Stonehedge 4a+) (2006) offers a representation that is theoretically accessible in ways other than through the gaze. A frontal sculpture that borrows from the baroque language, Neighbors (2006), Caroline Boucher's work, questions the perception of sculpture depending on the observer's point of view.

Conversely, other works focus on the flattening effect induced by the representation of reality. Barbara Bloom's Broken t (Hexagonal Plate) (1997) offers several ways of representing the same object. Gaël Pollin's photographs address reality in all its diversity while highlighting the perceptions of our systems of representation.

Playing with the cultural codes of representation, Étienne Bossut's still life borrows as much from painting as it does from sculpture: molding allows him to stand at the edge of the image as simulacrum and of the object as representation. Michel François also refers to the postmodern blurring of media. The image he presents in Déjà-vu (Cactus 1) (2003) creates an abstraction based on an effect of symmetry. With Dagny (2007), Matthias Bitzer works with a combination of figurative representation and abstract interpretation to create an autonomous space that allows, as the artist puts it, the dissolution of cultural temporal and spatial relationships. Isabelle Cornaro, for her part, has developed a reflection on space and, more specifically, on perspective in a number of her pieces. For the Perspective exhibition, we invited her to propose a work that takes into account the exhibition's scenography.

Le Bureau/ : Guillaume Baudin, Marc Bembekoff, Garance Chabert, Aurélien Mole, Julie Pagnier, Céline Poulin, Émilie Villez