Presentation
Lab’Bel was created in the spring of 2010 to support contemporary artistic creation. The activities of this impertinent Laboratory of ideas and innovation lie between the constitution of a Collection, currently on long-term loan to the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Dole, and the production of exhibitions and artistic events in France and Europe. Lab’Bel is also at the origin of a series of performative, transversal projects, exploring topics as varied as Modernist architecture, poetry, music, etc.
At the same time, Lab’Bel is the author of a number of artistic publications and editions. Some of them—like The Laughing Cow© Collector’s Edition Boxes, created every year by great contemporary artists—are carried out in close collaboration with the Bel Group’s teams and serve as the framework for different types of research and experimentation.
Lab’Bel – Exhibitions
Lab’Bel has developed an exhibition programme in France and Europe in the absence of a specific venue dedicated to its activities. To carry out its projects, generally occurring in series, Lab’Bel collaborates in various ways with the structures that host them. These collaborations often lead to the production of artistic works, generally in situ.
Lab’Bel – Public space performances
As it has no geographical ties, Lab’Bel regularly initiates artistic events, both in France and abroad, many of which combine the visual arts with other artistic disciplines (architecture, literature, music, theatre). Performance plays an important role, especially in the context of the different chapters of the 3 Easy Pieces project in Venice.
Lab’Bel – The Collection
Lab’Bel’s contemporary art Collection does not favour a specific media nor support and is open to all ages and nationalities in terms of the artists it supports. Instead, its peculiarity lies in its humour, impertinence and offbeat tone. On long-term loan to the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Dole, the Collection is made up mostly of pieces produced after the 2000s, in order to shine a light on truly contemporary artists.
Lab’Bel – Publishing
In addition to these activities, Lab’Bel is also involved in a variety of publishing projects (artistic editions, books, films). One of its most emblematic projects, The Laughing Cow© Collector’s Edition Boxes, is premiered every year at the FIAC to collectors from around the world, following an initial invitation from the Fair’s director in 2016.
Lab’Bel is a laboratory of ideas and innovation that aims to support artistic creation and promote its development.
Lab’Bel’s permanent team is made up of Laurent Fiévet, its Director, and Silvia Guerra, its Artistic Director. They regularly collaborate with Julie Eude, Production Manager, and Léo de Boisgisson for mediation.
DIRECTION
LAURENT FIÉVET
Laurent Fiévet is a visual artist, collector, exhibition curator, and the director of two separate endowment funds. His personal work most often takes the form of montages and immersive video installations making use of existing images that he reworks rhythmically, confronting each with the other and redeploying them in exhibition spaces. The great-grandson of Léon Bel, Laurent Fiévet was at the origin of an endowment fund in support of contemporary creation for the Bel group. This fund is known as Lab’Bel and has been in existence since 2010. Dividing his time between Paris and Brittany since 2018, he has devoted himself to other artistic projects, founding the Kervahut Endowment Fund in 2022, which aims to support the creation and dissemination of art in southern Finistère. The contemporary art collection that he has been building for over twenty years will be put to use in this rural project through a framework of artist residencies, exhibitions, and awareness-raising programmes focusing on different artistic practices.
ARTISTIC DIRECTION
SILVIA GUERRA
Art critic and curator, Silvia Guerra studied the history of art at Coimbra (Portugal) and at the Università di Ca’ Foscari in Venice (Italy). She published a bilingual thesis on contemporary art foundations: A Arte Contemporanea contada por duas fundaçoes culturais europeias: a Fundação de Serralves no Porto ao Fondazione Querini Stampalia em Veneza (Contemporary art told through the examples of two European cultural foundations: the Serralves Foundation in Porto and the Querini Stampalia Foundation in Venice).
Her professional practice began in 2001 with the coordination of the German Pavilion team at the Venice Biennale, presenting artist Gregor Schneider and his work “Totes Haus Ur”.
In 2006, after three years as a project manager specializing in contemporary art at the
Institute for the Arts of the Portuguese Ministry of Culture, she began to work as a freelance curator. She curated the following exhibitions: Under Hitchcock
(Solar Vila do Conde, 2007), No Name (Tráfico, Lisbon, 2009), and Readings in Times of Crisis (Porto, Loulé, Lisbon, Paris, 2009/2010). In this last curatorial project, Silvia Guerra explored the question of how to exhibit ideas rather than works, and to replace turn-of-the-century theoretical references with new ones, such as those set out by Boris Groys or Giorgio Agamben. Her Readings in Times of Crisis were held during sessions at the Petit Cabanon in Porto, in Loulé as part of MobileHome curated by Nuno Faria, and in Paris, at Bétonsalon (The Public School). Today, Silvia Guerra’s work continues to question the curator’s artistic creativity and experiments with new forms of exhibiting through new media like social networks (FlickR) and USB media to promote the mobility of exhibitions (No Name), etc.
PRODUCTION
JULIE EUDE
Julie Eude has been working as a freelance production manager for Lab’Bel since June 2020. She oversees the production of artistic projects, editorial coordination of publications, and the management of collection loans, while more broadly assisting the artistic director in the implementation of various initiatives.
She holds a degree in Art History and a Master in Cultural Event Management. In parallel, she leads guided tours and mediation activities in various contemporary art venues and institutions. She has also worked as a supervisor for the reception and ticket desks teams at the Palais de Tokyo.
Specialized in contemporary art, her entire professional career is dedicated to promoting its visibility and understanding, with the ongoing aim of making it accessible to the widest possible audience.
