MuMo 2 - Exquis! - frac île-de-france

An exhibition initiated by the director of the frac Île de-france, frac Normandy Caen and frac Normandy Rouen

Inauguration on Thursday April 27, from 6 – 8pm, Place de la République (Paris)

MuMo 2 : the project

The MuMo – Mobile Museum – imagined in 2011 by Ingrid Brochard, was born from a desire to share the arts to all. Since its creation, it encountered more than 80,000 European and African children.

The MuMo now duplicates in order to pursue its mission: children cultural and artistic education, with the suppory of the State and regional partners.

MuMo 2 takes exhibitions created by the directors of the Regional Contemporary Art Collection (Frac)* to rural areas and urban policy neighbourhoods known as Quartiers Politique de la Ville (QPV). Envisioned by the French designer matali crasset, it unites art, schools, inhabitants and the region.

Offsite: Exquisite!

With the works of :

Scoli Acosta, Pierre Ardouvin, Martha Colburn, Anne-Marie Filaire, Jean-Pascal Flavien*, Richard Fauguet*, Antoine Marquis*, Sophie Ristelhueber, Bruno Serralongue, Robert Stadler, Chloé Quenum*, Zin Taylor.

* Artworks from the frac île-de-france’s collection

This preliminary MuMo 2 exhibition was conceived by the directors of the Frac Île-de-France, Frac Normandy Caen and Frac Normandy Rouen according to the principle of the ‘exquisite corpse’. In turn they have chosen various works from their collections that resonate. The display takes shape through subtle associations of ideas and forms among the fifteen or so pieces.

From May to October 2017, the MuMo will make twenty stops in the Ile-de-France and Normandy regions, visiting encompassing educational and non-educational audiences, as well as inhabitants proposing workshops, tours and meetings. Exquisite corpse establishes an initial dialogue with a sculptural work by Richard Fauguet featuring a bird by Brancusi sporting a metal pouring spout. Reflecting this misappropriation of Brancusi’s work of art, Zin Taylor’s wooden constructions present an equally playful vision of form. The dust incorporated in these small photographed scenes, in turn leads us to an aerial view involving this same element. Taken by Sophie Ristelhueber in the Kuwaiti desert after the Gulf War, this shot evokes, in the eyes of the artist, the famous Dust Breeding immortalised by Man Ray based on Marcel Duchamp’s Large Glass.

The surface of the territory framed in this manner is present in the netting of the hammock by Chloé Quenum. This hammock is inserted in a wooden frame like a petrified body, ironically highlights, through its title in English, Leeway, the idea of drifting.

From this element, two pieces evoke the sun: whether through Solar Panel by Scoli Acosta, or Winter Sun drawn in watercolour by Pierre Ardouvin. The latter, with its multiple circular ripples, continues with geometric forms conceived by Bevis Martin & Charlie Youle. First Notions C (Solids and cupcake) features various objects from schoolbooks in the 1950s-1970s to illustrate set theory. The cupcake is like a foreign body, disturbing this game and providing the promise of reward. This same fun approach is restaged in embossed slates by the designer Robert Stadler, taking on the blackboard function. This reference brings us to Jean-Pascal Flavien’s red, almost chalky landscapes.

The tangle of lines that depict this expanding ‘prehistoric’ countryside, also characterise the forests photographed by Bruno Serralongue and Anne-Marie Filaire. The former documents in a close-up the ‘jungle’, the notorious primitive refugee camp near Calais that was dismantled in 2009; the latter captures Lebanon, in the aftermath of the war. Taken in 2006, Sawâné by Filaire symbolises wretched bodies by means of these gaunt trees. Wars and conquests are also at the heart of the animated film by Martha Colburn who forms another history of the United States through assembly and collage.

Exquisite corpse ends with Ruins by Antoine Marquis in which constructions and drawings in ballpoint pen appear to be one, before the line is definitively breaks free from its medium in Edith Dekyndt’s video, Dead Sea Drawings.

Small or medium-sized, representing all mediums, the artworks exhibited in the MuMo 2 reflect the frac’s as well as regional identities, while adapting to all audiences.