This Thursday marked the opening of the new exhibition titled “Liberté, Liberté Chérie” organized by the Mediterranean Union for Modern Art (UMAM) at the Espace Lympia in the port of Nice. It was inaugurated in the presence of Charles Ange Ginésy, President of the Alpes-Maritimes Department, and Eric Ciotti, Deputy and President of the Alpes-Maritimes Finance Commission. The exhibition will end on September 15.
The concept of freedom might be one of the most difficult ideas to define in the landscape of human principles. It is a milestone in civilization and resonates strongly within our Western culture. Above all, freedom encompasses all aspects of life, from law to body, including opinion. We wish to be free to express ourselves, think, live with dignity, and, in some way, be masters of our own destiny. Of our path. “In its simplest form, the difficulty can be summed up as the contradiction between our consciousness, which tells us we are free and therefore responsible, and our daily experience in the external world where we navigate based on the principle of causality,” writes Hannah Arendt in The Crisis of Culture.
The exhibition “Liberté, Liberté Chérie” features around sixty works by 32 local and international artists. Among them are Banksy, Li Bao Xun, François Bard, FRANTA, and Mauro Corda. Some of the works were created specifically for the exhibition, showcasing all types of artistic expressions: painting, photography, video installation, sculpture, and more.
Within the two buildings of the Espace Lympia, visitors will discover the different relationships artists have with freedom. The political dimension of the term and the forces that seek to obstruct it are quite apparent. Censorship, oppression, slavery— the specters of dictatorship and totalitarianism are never far away. Mauro Corda ridicules tyrants by representing them through dwarfism, while the chains presented by Marc Gaillet confront us with our heritage.
The photographer Gérard Rancinan revisits the famous painting by Eugène Delacroix “Liberty Leading the People,” updating it in a striking photograph that captures our contradictions with “Unveiled Liberty.” Meanwhile, Anthony Mirial offers a more intimate vision of freedom. His painting “Schizophrenic” challenges our ability to remain free in illness when the mind escapes us.
Gérard Taride presents his “Gilded Cage,” a large cage colored gold with a chair at its center, where a gun is placed. On the walls, brochures and newspaper pages, the binary language of our virtual universe. Cameras from all sides scrutinize our every move. Here, all freedom seems banished, except for the ability to take one’s own life.
Each artist understands the word “freedom” differently because it is elusive, irregular, and intriguing. With this exhibition, visitors can also form an idea of the profound meaning of freedom, which Paul Valéry described as “one of those detestable words that have more value than meaning; that sing more than they speak, that ask more than they answer.”
