Interrogeant les rapports entre l'État et le champ artistique en France entre 1848 et 1920, ce travail de recherche en histoire de l'architecture repose sur le postulat que la trajectoire architecturale du Musée du Luxembourg fut l'un des lieux privilégiés de la construction d'une représentation négative de l'intervention de l'État dans les affaires artistiques. Ce musée, dont les collections sont aujourd'hui atomisées dans différentes institutions parisiennes et provinciales, devint, en 1818, le premier musée d'art contemporain, par la volonté du roi Louis XVIII. Dès l'origine, il fut considéré comme la pépinière du Louvre. Cette relation de symbiose entre les deux institutions, basée sur le principe des vases communicants, servit de référence à l'émergence de nouveaux paradigmes muséaux en Europe et en Amérique du Nord, jusqu'au premier tiers du XXe siècle. La principale mission du Musée du Luxembourg était d'affirmer la supériorité de l'art français face à celui des autres puissances européennes. Si sa représentativité artistique fut pour le moins partielle, son exemplarité architecturale, elle, demeura un idéal jamais atteint. L'analyse de fonds d'archives, de revues de presse et de documents parlementaires, permet de vérifier l'hypothèse de la construction progressive d'un antagonisme, grâce à la mobilisation de différentes catégories d'acteurs appartenant ou non au champ artistique. Cette mobilisation s'effectue collectivement par le biais des journaux, au sein des sociétés artistiques, des sociétés de mécènes, de groupements de citoyens et de fédérations de commerçants, sous la forme de discours, de pétitions, d'enquêtes ou de campagnes de presse, ou bien individuellement, à l'initiative des artistes représentés au musée ou de journalistes influents. Toutefois, la remise en question la plus décisive du rôle de l'État provient des utilisateurs du musée eux-mêmes, souvent impuissants face à la pesanteur des rouages bureaucratiques, à la maigreur des budgets alloués aux musées nationaux, et à l'inadaptation des locaux avec lesquels ils doivent composer. La construction de cette représentation négative se structure autour de moments clés récurrents : vernissage d'un nouvel accrochage des collections, intégration des œuvres d'un legs ou d'une donation, dépôt et discussion d'un rapport sur le budget des Beaux-arts, Expositions universelles, incidents touchant les collections, rumeurs colportées par la presse. Néanmoins, les moments les plus critiques coïncident avec la remise en question de l'existence même du musée, avec la menace de son expulsion, ou avec l'officialisation et la mise en œuvre de projets de relogement, qu'il s'agisse du transfert du musée dans des bâtiments existants, d'extension de ses locaux, ou de leur reconstruction intégrale. Chacun de ces événements contribue à la cristallisation de thèmes et d'enjeux, qui vont polariser l'essentiel des critiques formulées à l'égard de l'action artistique publique. On peut ainsi dégager quatre thèmes récurrents dans les débats : l'absence d'exemplarité architecturale du musée, incompatible avec le rayonnement artistique de la France et de sa capitale ; l'impossibilité de mobiliser les fonds nécessaires à une résolution définitive de la question de l'exemplarité architecturale ; l'impossible consensus sur la question de localisation du musée dans l'hypothèse de son relogement ; le paradoxe entre la construction d'une expertise des conservateurs en matière de programmation architecturale et l'incapacité de l'État à leur donner les moyens de l'appliquer. En aucun cas, cependant, cette critique de l'action (ou de l'inaction) de l'État ne débouche, avant 1920, sur des projets de création de musées concurrents et indépendants ; la mobilisation du champ artistique est tournée vers une forme d'assistance à l'État, dans la résolution de la crise qui touche le Musée du Luxembourg / This dissertation in architectural history argues that the architectural trajectory of the Luxembourg Museum in Paris was one of the main reasons why the French public art policy was considered as unwarranted and illegitimate. The Luxembourg Museum, whose collections are now scattered in various Parisian and provincial institutions, became in 1818 the world's first museum of contemporary art, by the will of King Louis XVIII. From the beginning, its aim was to feed the Louvre with recent and national art. The symbiotic relationship between these two museums, which was based on the principle of communicating vessels, was a paradigm for new museums in Europe and North America, until the first third of the twentieth century. Although the main mission of the Luxembourg Museum was to assert the superiority of French art face to that of other European nations, it was long criticized not only because it did not reflect the diversity of artistic trends, but also because the conditions under which its collections were stored and exhibited were unworthy of Paris' attractiveness and influence. Through the analysis of primary sources, press reviews and parliamentary papers, we wanted to test the hypothesis that the mobilization of different categories of stakeholders within and outside the artistic field led to an increasing distrust of public art policy. Leading artists represented in the museum, influential journalists from daily and art newspapers, art and patrons societies, citizens and merchant associations, promoted mobilization against through speeches, petitions, surveys or media campaigns. Even the museum professionals themselves were powerless against complicated bureaucratic procedures, shoestring budgets for national museums, and unsuitable storage and exhibition spaces, and ended up questioning the role of the French state in art policy. The negative image of the role of the French state was shaped at key moments and recurring events: the re-hanging of the collection, the display of a new gift or bequest, discussions about the annual budget of the ministry of Fine-Arts, World Fairs, preventive conservation matters, and rumors. However, the most critical moments coincided with the questioning of the very existence of the museum, with the threat of its uprooting, or the formalization and implementation of resettlement, extension or reconstruction schemes. Each of these events crystallized themes and issues that polarized most of the criticisms aired at the public art policy. We identified four major topics in this debate: the shameful absence of a purpose-built museum of contemporary art in Paris; the Governement's inability to raise funds to finally resolve the architectural issue; the lack of consensus on the future museum's location issue; the contradiction between the recognition of the curators' skills in architectural design and the inability of their administration to give them the opportunity to apply them. The main paradox is that although the public art policy was more and more considered as inaccurate and illegitimate, most of the artistic field helped the Government to resolve the ‘Luxembourg issue' and build a monument worthy of the nation

Escrever como obra. Essa é a proposta de //. Produzir uma publicação que não separe o texto da plasticidade tendo como tema o afeto- sua produção, permanência e evanescência. Neste livro-objeto, pensar a escrita como arte [um fazer] e a escrita na arte [um localizar] é um mesmo movimento, um mesmo exercício. // incide sobre o campo do afeto como tema e da escrita como forma, partindo de trabalhos que problematizem o campo afetivo e/ou existam no contato escrita-arte. Nos vastos estudos que localizam o afeto como força central na constituição da paisagem urbana e das relações sociais, políticas e econômicas, busquei me movimentar por um espaço que tratasse das novas modalidades de um afeto íntimo e de uma intimidade pública. O cruzamento da pesquisa teórica com a produção de artistas contemporâneos apareceu como método de pesquisa e impulso produtivo apontando para um trabalho prático-teórico que trouxesse tanto uma escrita de si quanto uma escrita conceitual para dentro do trabalho. Em // a produção de um texto/obra parte da investigação sobre os modos de aparição de subjetividade e afetividade no contemporâneo, sobre como ressonâncias psicológicas e afetivas dão origem a uma escrita de superfícies estéticas, matérias visuais e operações gráficas / Writing as work. This is the proposal of "//". Produce a publication that does not separate the text of plasticity having as theme the afeto- production, permanence and evanescence. In this book-object, thinking writing as art [a doing] and writing in art [a locate] is the same movement, the same exercise. "//" focuses on the field of affect as a theme and writing as form taking as a basis works that problematize the affective domain and / or exist trough the contact writing-art. In the large studies that locate the affection as a central force in the creation of the urban landscape and social, political and economic relations, I sought to move towards a space that treats new arrangements for an intimate affection and a public intimacy. The intersection of theoretical research with the production of contemporary artists appeared as a research method and productive momentum pointing to a practical-theoretical work to bring both a written and a conceptual writing themselves into the work. In "//" the producing a text that is also work is a consequence of the research on the modes of appearance of subjectivity and emotion in the contemporary, on how psychological and affective resonances rise into written aesthetic surfaces, visual materials and graphics operations

Tendo como objetivo principal destrinchar o conceito do vazio e a forma como este permeou a produção artística e o pensamento humano ao longo dos tempos, esta pesquisa faz uma incursão por teorias filosóficas desde a Antiguidade Clássica ocidental até conceitos filosóficos e religiosos do Oriente, a fim de compreender como o interesse pela ideia de vazio migrou para a produção artística e, mais do que isso, consolidou-se como um importante fundamento para a Arte Moderna e para a produção contemporânea. Partindo de exemplos e momentos da História da Arte que permitam a compreensão das várias formas como o pensamento artístico incorporou o conceito nas obras de arte, a partir desta primeira busca histórica e conceitual, será feita uma investigação pela produção de artistas visuais cujas trajetórias foram marcadas por ideias de esvaziamento. Num segundo momento, uma análise da 28 Bienal de São Paulo cujo eixo curatorial manteve todo um pavimento vazio durante o período expositivo buscará compreender a forma como a presença do vazio pode se ampliar para além do objeto artístico e se incorporar ao próprio espaço institucional / As its main objective to disentangle the concept of emptiness and how it permeate the artistic production and the human thought over time, this research makes an incursion through philosophical theories from Western Classical Antiquity to Eastern philosophical and religious concepts, aiming to comprehend how the interest around the idea of emptiness migrated into the artistic production and, more than that, became an important foundation for the Modern Art and for the contemporary production. Taking examples and moments in Art History that allow us to understand how the artistic thought incorporated such concept in works of art, from this first historical and conceptual search we'll investigate the production of artists in whose trajectories the idea of emptiness was notorious. On a second moment, from an analysis of the 28th São Paulo Art Biennial - that had a whole floor empty throughout the exhibition period as a curatorial strategy - we'll try to understand the way the presence of the emptiness could expand beyond the artistic object and incorporate the institutional space

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The target of this research is to help the thinking about contemporary art through a new approach from the Idea of play to gaming. We try to comprehend the overthrow and entertainment concepts in the games developed and in the art and gaming field. This observation doesn‟t lay down just on the games created in this research, but also include a few aspects of art and technology in contemporary art. Between practice and theory the methodology was built, and together they tangled the proposed thought. To elucidade the thought tha we came with in this study we start with the approach of the play concept, that raises on philosophy and is adopted by the visual arts. From philosophycal play to eletronic game, and when it is found on a artistic context, it can be called as art and gamimg. In trying to understand and define what exactly art and gaming are about I show my own artistic games. This master thesis ends with a view of the contemporary art scenery and how the overthrow and entertainment concepts can integrate the contemporary art today. / O objetivo desta pesquisa, em poéticas visuais, é de contribuir para pensar a arte contemporânea atual através de uma nova abordagem que parte da ideia de jogo na arte para chegar ao game. Verificam-se os conceitos de subversão e diversão na minha produção pessoal na área da gamearte. Esta reflexão não se restringe somente sobre minha produção, mas também abrange alguns aspectos da arte e tecnologia na arte contemporânea. A metodologia utilizada na pesquisa desenvolve-se no ir e vir entre a prática artística e a teoria que, unidas, tecem o pensamento proposto. Para elucidar a proposição apresentada neste estudo, inicia-se com a abordagem do conceito de jogo, que se origina na filosofia e é adotado pela arte. Do jogo filosófico segue-se para o jogo eletrônico, chamado de game, e quando inserido em um contexto artístico assume-se como gamearte. Ao tentar compreender e delimitar, quando possível, o que seria esta produção em gamearte, exponho a minha experiência pessoal na produção de jogos artísticos. Para fechar esta dissertação apresentam-se outras produções contemporâneas em gamearte, a fim de evidenciar como a diversão e o entretenimento podem integrar a arte contemporânea recente.

L’art contemporain en Tunisie est resté à la marge de l’art contemporain. Quelles sont les raisons qui ont empêché sa reconnaissance ? Voulant rompre avec toutes les représentations dites coloniales et orientalistes, les artistes de la jeune génération qui viennent après l’indépendance, cherchent à s’ouvrir sur l’international et à se moderniser tout en préservant leurs identités et leurs appartenances. Ils se sont retournés vers le patrimoine et la calligraphie pour ainsi « tunisifier » leurs peintures abstraites. L’art abstrait, au départ était une aventure libératrice. Plus tard, avec une critique presque absente, peu curieuse ou censurée, voire corrompue, une commission nationale d’achat qui sélectionne arbitrairement les œuvres et les artistes, les artistes tunisiens ont pu se réfugier dans l’art abstrait pour fuir la réalité. Sinon pour profiter du consentement de la commission d’achat. A force de répéter et de se répéter ils sont tombés dans le suivisme et l’anarchisme qui ont engendré une médiocrité de style et une stagnation picturale. Pendant que les uns tombent dans une léthargie sans fin, d’autres vont chercher à communiquer implicitement leur désarroi et leur malaise. Les enjeux sociaux ont fait que ces artistes restent à la marge d’une reconnaissance artistique nationale. À l’échelle international, il y a deux ou trois décennies il était inimaginable de porter un regard autre qu’ethnographique sur la production artistique non occidental et plus tard quand les frontières ont été aboulies, ceux qui passent à la visibilité le font à travers des règles imposés de l’extérieur. Les artistes ont été soulagés par la Révolution et ont rompu le mur du silence, de la crainte, de l’interdit et de la peur. Mais la libération de l’art qui correspond au devenir démocratique pourrait aussi s’accompagner du retour à une censure symbolique d’une nature moins démocratique. C’est sans doute le défi de l’art tunisien d’aujourd’hui. Cette thèse d’histoire de l’art aborde le sujet avec les méthodes de l’historien et le regard du critique. / Contemporary art in Tunisia was seen at the margin of contemporary art. What are the reasons that hide its recognition? In order to break with all the colonial and Orientalist representations, the artists of the youth generation who come after the independence, tried to be known all over the world and stick into modernity while preserving their identities and affiliations. They turned, as a result, to the patrimony and calligraphy in order to « tunisify » their abstract paintings. At the beginning, the Abstract art was defined as a liberating adventure. Later on the absence of critique which was not curious, or even corrupted, the commission of purchase selects arbitrarily the works and artists; Tunisian artists have taken refuge in abstract art to bury its reality, or to get the consent of the buying commission. By dint of repeating and re-repeating they fell into the conformism and anarchism which generate a mediocrity of style and pictorial stagnation. While some fall into lethargy endless lethargy, others will attempt to communicate implicitly their distress and discomfort. Besides, artists remain at the margin of a national artistic recognition due to many social issues. On the international scale, two or three decades ago, it was unimaginable to look back on non-occidental artistic production with ethnographic point of view and later when the borders were abolished, those who moved to the visibility did it with rules imposed from the outside. Artists was relieved by the revolution, after breaking the wall of silence, of fear, of the forbidden. But the liberation of art as the fate of democracy could also be accompanied by a back to the symbolic censorship of a narrow democratic landscape. It is probably the challenge of Tunisian art today. This thesis discusses, then, the topic of art history through historian’s approaches and critics view.

A presente pesquisa, intitulada Agenciamentos de Visita: notações pictóricas na fotografia de ambientes domésticos, analisa os procedimentos de elaboração das séries fotográficas Agenciamentos de Visita para Estudos de Composição – natureza morta e Agenciamentos de Visita para Estudos de Composição – cena de gênero, abarcando as questões emergidas destas práticas. Neste contexto, as relações entre fotografia e pintura holandesa são investigadas, partindo de minha poética e articulando-a com a arte atual, a qual é referenciada pelo uso de cenas construídas para a realização das imagens. Concernente ao procedimento de trabalho, a prática de visitas veiculou a investigação do espaço da casa como reduto íntimo e como estúdio provisório. / The present research named Requests to Visit: pictorial notations in domestic space’s photography analyses the procedures of elaboration of the photography series Requests to visit for Composition Studies– still life and Requests to visit for Composition Studies - gender scenes, including the questions emerged from these practices. In this context, the relations between photography and Dutch painting are investigated, having as a starting point my poetic and articulating it with the recent art, which is alluded by the use of scenes made for the realization of the images. Concerning the working procedure, the visiting practice leaded to the investigation of the house’s space as being an intimate redoubt and a provisory studio.

Esta pesquisa propõe uma reflexão sobre minha conduta criadora, apresentando os pressupostos, conceitos, ações, intenções e estratégias que participaram da instauração da proposição artística intitulada Objetos Imaturos. Esta tese explora a possibilidade de existência de uma arte objetual numérica, constituída a partir do deslocamento de procedimentos operacionais do espaço real para o virtual tecnológico, envolvendo ações de apropriação, fragmentação e construções que se aplicam em objetos pré-fabricados, tomados como matéria-prima do mercado de produtos numéricos. A conformação desta produção objetual ocorre sob certas condições vinculadas a um conceito amplo e aberto de objeto, tendo em vista a identificação da realidade virtual numérica como território de trabalho e levando em conta a pesquisa e exploração das características distintivas da imagem numérica, sob o ponto de vista de suas diferenciações, no que diz respeito à materialidade, plasticidade, espacialidade e temporalidade. Junto a esta produção objetual de caráter numérico no contexto da artemídia ― denominada Objetos Imaturos ― é articulada uma reflexão conceitual sobre características distintivas de dispositivos tecnológicos que gerenciam e condicionam formas de percepção e agenciam novos sistemas simbólicos. / This study intends to propose a reflection upon my conduct of creation presenting the presuppositions, concepts, actions, intentions and strategies that played a role in the establishment of the artistic proposition named Immature Objects. This thesis explores the possible existence of a numeric objectual art, established through an operational procedures move from the real space to the technologic virtual, involving acts of appropriation, recycling, fragmentation and constructions that are applied to prefabricated objects taken as raw materials from the market of numeric products. The conformation of this objectual production occurs under some conditions linked to a broader concept of object, focusing the identification of a numeric virtual reality as the field of work and taking into account the research and exploration of different characteristics of numeric image, under the point of view of its differences about the materiality, plasticity, spatiality and temporality. A conceptual reflection about different characteristic of technological devices which manage and determine the perception style and promote new symbolic systems is linked to this objectual production in the media art, named Immature Objects.

Este trabalhou tomou como ponto de partida a presença, no meio artístico brasileiro, entre 2000 e 2015, dos assim chamados coletivos de artistas. Ele procurou circunscrever histórica e conceitualmente as \"práticas artísticas colaborativas\" e as \"estratégias de visibilidade\" desenvolvidas por esses agrupamentos de artistas \"emergentes\" - no contexto de seu envolvimento, entre 1999 e 2001, com os movimentos altermundialistas e antiglobalização, e, a partir de 2003, com movimentos sociais de luta por moradia - alinhando-se, ao menos discursivamente, com a perspectiva dos \"de baixo\". De outro lado, o trabalho também identificou o desenvolvimento simultâneo, \"pelo alto\", de um complexo de procedimentos curatoriais pautados por novos modos de apresentação (displays) de objetos artísticos em exposições de \"arte contemporânea\". Por meio dos novos procedimentos curatoriais, tanto a 27ª Bienal de São Paulo (2006) quanto as mostras de \"arte contemporânea\" do Museu de Arte do Rio (2013-2015) foram capazes de absorver e canalizar, em seus discursos, parte das demandas \"subalternas\" associadas à produção dos coletivos. Para refletir criticamente sobre esse complexo de fenômenos do campo artístico, a pesquisa procurou articular uma discussão atualizada em torno dos conceitos gramscianos de \"hegemonia\" e de \"revolução passiva\". Tais conceitos, formulados originalmente pelo pensador italiano Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), têm sido reprocessados teoricamente, no debate da sociologia brasileira de extração marxista, para pensar o ciclo dito \"lulista\" do Brasil contemporâneo. Em síntese, uma vez verificada a absorção das práticas \"emergentes\" e \"colaborativas\" pelo circuito artístico local, este trabalho procurou estabelecer e questionar historicamente as contradições e possíveis confluências das \"estratégias de visibilidade\", associadas às demandas dos \"de baixo\", com o desenvolvimento combinado dos novos procedimentos curatoriais, operados \"pelo alto\". / This research was motivated by the raising of the so-called artist collectives in Brazilian art field, particularly between the years 2000 and 2015. The thesis aims to delineate conceptually and historically the \"collaborative artistic practices\" and the \"strategies of visibility\" carried out seemingly \"from below\" by these \"emerging\" groups of artists - engaged mainly with the alter-mundialization and anti-globalization movements between 1999 and 2001, and, since 2003, with social struggles for housing. Furthermore, this survey also realized the simultaneous development of a complex of curatorial proceedings \"from the top\", based on new modes of display artistic objects in \"contemporary art\" exhibitions. Through these new curatorial practices, both the 27th Sao Paulo Bienal (2006) and the \"contemporary art\" exhibitions held by the Art Museum of Rio (2013-2015) managed to absorb and convey, in its discourses, part of the \"subaltern\" demands brought forward in the work produced by the artist collectives. In order to critically reflect about this complex of phenomena in the art field, the research articulates a debate operating the Gramscian concepts of \"hegemony\" and \"passive revolution\". These concepts, originally formulated by the Italian thinker Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), had been theoretically reenacted in the Brazilian sociological debate derived from a Marxist background, to think the so-called \"lulist\" cycle in contemporary Brazil. Finally, after verifying the absorption of the \"emergent\" and \"collaborative\" practices by the local art circuit, this research aims to delineate and problematize the contradictions, and possible confluences, between the \"visibility strategies\" coming \"from below\" and the combined development of the new curatorial proceedings \"from the top\".

Comment mémoriser quand tout semble déjà mémorisé, enregistré, archivé ? Comment produire de la mémoire quand chacun se trouve entouré d’appareils disposés à mémoriser pour lui ? Comment opérer une distinction entre une « mémoire » prothétique, externalisée, déterritorialisée et une mémoire qui serait de l’ordre de l’expérience ? Notre hypothèse est que pour saisir la spécificité de cette mémoire, il faut comprendre en quoi elle relève d’un processus avant tout corporel. La mémoire non seulement s’inscrit dans le corps, mais plus encore procède du corps. Les « arts de la mémoire » qui envisagent la mémoire comme un procédé associant une image à un lieu laissent ainsi impensé le troisième terme de cette association : le corps, et plus précisément le corps affecté. C’est l’art, et en particulier l’art à partir des années soixante, qui nous semble restituer de la façon la plus manifeste ce processus quand il prend le corps comme médium et articule ainsi étroitement les notions de pratique, de mémoire et de corps, à travers trois modalités principalement : la trace, l’inscription, l’archive. Pour comprendre comment les pratiques artistiques à partir des années soixante donnent à repenser les pratiques mémorielles, nous nous intéresserons donc au corps qui se mesure à l’espace et y laisse une trace (Richard Long, Piero Manzoni, Stanley Brouwn) ; au corps qui répète un même geste et par cette répétition, inscrit ce geste en lui (Samuel Beckett, Bruce Nauman, Vito Acconci, Andy Warhol) ; au corps enfin qui se fige, se stratifie et devient lui-même sa propre archive (Jeff Wall, Gerhard Richter). / How to memorize when everything seems already memorized, recorded, archived? How to produce memory when one is submerged by tools, apparatus already memorizing for oneself? How to operate a distinction between a prosthetic, external “memory” and a memory which proceeds from experience? The specificity of memory consists in, and this is our hypothesis, bodily processes. Not only does memory inscribes itself in the body, but it also proceeds from the body. The arts of memory (the ars memoriae of the Antiquity) which conceive memory as a procedure associating an image with a place, do not take in consideration the other term of this association: the body, or more precisely, the affected body. Art, and specifically art since the sixties, reconsiders the link between body and memory by using the body as a medium, thus closely articulating notions of practice, memory and body through three modalities: trace, inscription, and archive. In order to understand how art practices since the sixties have contributed to redefining memory practices, the research will focus first on the body which confronts itself to space and leaves a trace (Piero Manzoni, Richard Long, Stanley Brouwn), then on the body which repeats the same gesture and by the way of this repetition, inscribes this gesture in itself (Samuel Beckett, Bruce Nauman, Vito Acconci, Andy Warhol), and finally, the body which becomes itself a body-archive (Jeff Wall, Gerhard Richter).

Théoriciens et praticiens de la danse contemporaine recourent fréquemment à la philosophie de Merleau-Ponty. Pourtant ce philosophe n’a jamais pris la danse pour objet de pensée. Afin d’évaluer la pertinence et la fécondité et d’éclairer les modalités de cette paradoxale rencontre, cette recherche la met à l’épreuve de descriptions de pièces chorégraphiques dites contemporaines. Elle a abouti à la thèse suivante : non seulement la philosophie merleau-pontyenne constitue un étayage efficace pour penser la danse contemporaine mais cette confrontation s’avère également éclairante pour relire et comprendre les textes du phénoménologue. Ce travail a effectivement permis de mettre en exergue la fonction charnière de la notion merleau-pontyenne de porte-à-faux jusqu’ici peu remarquée et commentée. / Theorists and practitioners of contemporary dance frequently use the Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy. However, this philosopher has never used dance as an object of thought. In order to assess the relevance and the fertility, and to clarify the terms of this paradoxical encounter, this research examines descriptions of choreographic called contemporary. It has resulted in the following thesis: not only the Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy is an effective support to think contemporary dance but this confrontation is also illuminating for reading and understanding texts of the phenomenologist. This work has effectively highlighted the pivotal function of the Merleau-Ponty’s notion of the “porte-à-faux”, slightly noticed and commented on so far.