The Mediterranean brings together an infinite variety of imaginations on the same shore and under the same sky. A land of dreams and fears, it cultivates a fascination conducive to imagining a world.
Sous l'azur is inspired by the evocative power of this unique sea and the visions it conjures up.
Nourished by renewed attention to the creatures that populate it, the splendors that shape it, the disasters that threaten it, and the beings and ideals that perish in it, Sous l'azur unfolds like a ballet in which works appear and vanish, faithful to the perpetual movements that animate the marine world.
This exhibition brings together some twenty international artists, both historical and contemporary, who share the common trait of having found in the Mediterranean an immense territory of inspiration.
It also features a unique object from the heritage collections of each host city, telling the story of the special relationship between its inhabitants and their sea.
Sous l'azur pays homage to the men and women who watch the sea from the shore, and who, as a Hittite myth tells us, once believed, like the gods, that the sea captured the sun as it fell over the horizon each evening. What would the light of the star immersed in the sea reveal? What stories and invisible presences might it illuminate?
Sous l'azur looks at our contemporary mythology, at what it tells us about the desires and despairs of our time, and how it makes the Mediterranean a territory in constant reinvention, driven by the images it conjures up.
The artists featured in the exhibition Sous l'azur :
Etel Adnan, Jean-Marie Appriou, Baya, Cecilia Bengolea, Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Simone Fattal, Joana Hadjithomas and
Khalil Joreige, Edi Hila, Marguerite Humeau, La Timmy, Yannis Maniatakos, Marisa Merz, Joan Miró, Lydia Ourahmane, Jean Painlevé, Anri Sala, Emilija Škarnulytė, Soundwalk Collective, Adrián Villar Rojas, Dominique White, Luigi Zuccheri.
Curator: Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel
Associate Curator: Blanche de Lestrange
