Annie Claustres

Annie Claustres is associate professor in the history and theory of contemporary art at Lyon 2 University. In 2009 she was the recipient of a Terra Foundation for American Art grant and, from 2010 to 2014, worked as a scientific advisor at Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art in Paris. In 2013 Claustres published Le Tournant Populaire des Cultural Studies (1964-2008), an anthology of essays on marginal cultures. Her subsequent work, Objets Emblèmes, Objets du Don. Enjeux Postmodernes de la Culture Matérielle, de 1964 à Nos Jours (2017) revisits and updates theories on the gift.

Annie Claustres’ project on art in the 2000s had a particular focus on Japanese activism, informed by conversations with creators and other members of the Japanese art scene. Claustres wished to refute the idea of the work of art as merchandise, in light of gift creations where the gift had a societal, aesthetic or political dimension.

The longer-term objective was an exhibition in Paris, prepared in collaboration with the artists Claustres met during her residency, that would foster exchanges between the French and Japanese art scenes.