Sheena Macrae "Odyssey" 2006 video installation.

Francois Paire "Sliding Idoi" 2006. Claude Ratault Definitions/Methods 1975-96.

Daniel Chuet Peters "Pretense" 2001-02. Nicolas Floc'h "Happening Painting - 4" 2006.

Nicolas Floc'h "Diverse Functional Structures" detail, 2000-06. The exhibition "Exploring the Categories of Productivity - 1" (Zones de Productivités Concertées - 1) was held from October 13, 2006, to January 14, 2007, at the Musée d'Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne in the southern suburbs of Paris. This special exhibition series offers a novel exploration of the relationship between art and economy, specifically focusing on different categories of artistic productivity. Curated jointly by economist Fabrice Tricou and curator Frank Lamy, it examines how art functions within the circulation of today's art market—whether as art-economy, economy-art, art-commodity, commodity-art, artist-laborer, or artist-seller—and highlights the significant and substantive role the economy plays. Artworks have become luxury consumer goods for high society, while cultural products represent the economic phenomenon of contemporary artistic productivity.

The "Exploring the Categories of Productivity - 1" exhibition is divided into three phases, running until August 19, 2007, featuring solo exhibitions by 21 contemporary artists. Through their distinct artistic explorations from various perspectives, they present the conditions for creating artworks: how to create, transform, produce, store, participate, function, circulate, and work in studios. Rather than a thematic show, this project analyzes these conditions to question their concepts and thinking, akin to examining contemporary visual arts creation. Each phase features 6 to 8 European contemporary artists. The first phase includes six artists: French artists Claude Ratault (born 1941), Nicolas Floc'h (born 1970), and Francois Paire (born 1964); Spanish artist Daniel Chuet Peters (born 1965); German artist Jonathan Monk (born 1969); and British artist Sheena Macrae (born 1972).

Among these artists, Claude Ratault is the eldest; his exploration focuses on the conditions of art products. Since 1973, he has established his creative methods (Definitions/methodes), questioning the conditions and protocols of painting, with public display being his primary mode of presentation within alternative conceptual art. Nicolas Floc'h's creations involve audience participation protocols, such as the "Happening Painting Series," and another series featuring diverse forms shaped by audience and performance, titled "Diverse Functional Structures." Francois Paire transforms commercial advertising and signage imagery from capitalism, manipulating their protocols to deconstruct or reconstruct them into works. Daniel Chuet Peters presents his studio, constructing objects and installations under the protocol of multi-element materials built upon single forms, demonstrating the conditions of his products. Jonathan Monk uses neon text to display the opening hours of the gallery where his work is exhibited, presenting the conditions of product sales. Sheena Macrae creates video art series compressing popular television or film images, showcasing the overwhelming phenomenon of massive and ultra-fast consumption of images and cultural products in contemporary times.