As every year, the graduating students from Villa Arson showcase their final works. This year, under the theme of the Odyssey, we evoke Ulysses and his long journey back to Ithaca.
Studies are long, and the analogy with this Odyssey perfectly illustrates the exhibition. Moreover, as we will see, there is a significant portion of mythology in these works, those of future artists.
Each of these students, in their own way, their way of seeing, expressing, envisioning, or even creating, has realized this final study piece. The jury has selected about twenty, for each it’s a bit like their thesis, even though we don’t say doctor of art.
Artistic expressions are displayed in various ways. We admire sculpture, that of a wood lover, its warmth, and its many uses. Photography and cinema, cinema or photography, the debate is open. Is a film a series of photos, or conversely, are photos the lines and chapters of a book and a novel named film? Photography holds a significant place this year; if the photographer frames a subject, it can also be chance that creates this framing. Drawings, sculptures, how many means of expression does art have? An infinity.
To this question, a famous artist responded by drawing a line on the ground and added: “This is already art, this line precedes creation.” One then understands the importance given to tags, urban art, as some critics say. Cinema, here we have a short film, the work of a videographer where the camera and staging are admirably controlled with characters slowly submerged by waters, a flood? While peace is sung, his work reminds us of Italian neorealists from the ‘60s.
Photography, suggestive or erotic, the naked man or the nudity of man, a medal where both sides cannot be separated, irreconcilable Janus, two poles, two contrasts. Nature in anger with a volcano from the Ionian Islands. Flying machines, neon, and death rays. Becoming more prudent, it is good in such an extensive exhibition to provide spaces where the visitor, in a way, returns to earth, admiring drawings and sketches. Again, photos with new approaches, “Here is the Earth!” Snakes intertwined in a knot and this root, we would be at the Earth’s center, which is then a periscope to the surface! Weaving and sewing, writing and slogans, tapers and candles, a black tunnel with a flickering light at its end.
The end or the beginning, a passage, a resurrection? Then exotism transports us to the Amazon, we return to Nice, the journey ends with these paintings of the Bay of Angels, airplanes, and palm trees. The students have given us a magnificent journey into their vision, the vision of the artists they already are. By sharing with visitors their visions, the emanations of their souls, their dreams and ideals: to create, recreate the world, shape it, and humanize it.
This exhibition is, in fact, a message of hope for our era, which is a victim of hatred and fanaticism.
Until September 21 at Villa Arson and October 4 at the Galerie de la Marine, one can admire and contemplate the fruits of the work and studies of these graduates from Villa Arson, a nursery of future talents in arts and beauty, forgive the pleonasm.
Thierry Jan
