This summer, the Villa Arson offers us two exceptional exhibitions, two artistic visions, and two opportunities to escape the banality of everyday life and enjoy the freshness of the gardens of this art school and artist residency; gardens where one will love to get lost in a concrete labyrinth in search of emerging artists in this temple of contemporary art. Let us return to our exhibitions.
The first is presented by an artist, an actor, a man of words, life, and things. Marius Dakpogan tells us, or rather narrates, his country, his history, his colonial past, Benin. He is a troubadour; life, death, deities, culture, voodoo, earth, thunder, Stop Ma Da Ta. Marius denounces the exploitation of Africa and the plundering of its subsoil and raw materials.
This Beninese actor is a wonderful ambassador for his country and for the 14 artists exhibiting at Villa Arson. Benin is Africa with its colors, its shimmering costumes, the shantytowns where making do is the daily fare. Men behind barbed wire, tables studded with nails, migrants are not forgotten with overloaded boats.
Stop Ma Pa Ta is a plea for Africa. Through these 14 artists, we discover this country and Africa. An image light-years away from tourist postcards. Africa is first and foremost a soul, and Villa Arson allows us to discover one aspect of it.
The exhibition is done in collaboration with the Center of Art and Culture in Cotonou, and the Vallois Gallery in Paris. The second exhibition: Point Quartz is the first season (a trendy word) of four planned exhibitions. The theme of this first chapter is: Flower of Kent, with Newton’s apple and gravitation as the main themes. Twenty ceramic works are presented.
We revisit the genesis of ceramics from raw earth to its creation in works and forms, the fruit of the artist’s imagination. Horizontal and vertical works, arranged on the ground. Here, time is paced by gravity; everything moves slowly, like in a slow-motion film. Point Quartz allows us to catch our breath. Ceramics, the fruit of earth shaped and fired by humans, since when?
As with Africa, we do not count, and we particularly admire the peasant by Jules Aimé Dalou, bent over, curved by his work and time. These two exhibitions could be summed up with this word: Time and infinitely declining all forms of time.
Thierry Jan
