“It is gratifying to enter the collections of a museum. I see this as recognition of my work… ”In front of her enigmatic erotic painting, Maison close, the young Strasbourg painter Aurélie de Heinzelin savor the satisfaction of a hanging that highlights this recent acquisition, in a substantial format, made last year by the Eurometropolis for the benefit of the Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.
She is one of the 42 artists who mark the course of Circuits courts, an exhibition devoted to creation in the East, approached through the prism of acquisitions of the last ten years. “Whether it’s purchases or donations from collectors,” comments Estelle Pietrzyk, chief curator of the museum. The gender balance is more or less respected – “Twenty women for twenty-two men”. Who make a large generational gap since the age range goes from 33 to 82 years.
The energy of a territory
The idea is not to be locked into a production which would be defined by its regional affiliation but “to show the bubbling activity which manifests itself in a territory with rather loose contours,” the East “, with families of ‘artists who can be conducive to dialogue,’ explains the director of Mamcs.
These dialogues do indeed build the path of Short Circuits whose dynamics are nourished by exchanges, connivance, formal or thematic resonances, even breaks or contrasts.
Most of the works (“More than a hundred”) had never before been shown to the public. In addition, the probability of seeing them appear in the same exhibition was quite slim, as the registers and vocabularies are so different. How to make the radical abstraction of Aurélie Nemours or Geneviève Asse coincide with the narrative universe of Gretel Weyer or Aurélie de Heinzelin? The photographic gaze (and sublimely graphic) of a surgical precision of Fernande Petitdemange with that very pictorial and blurry of Laurence Demaison? The falsely decorative and very disturbing subject of Lisa Sartorio’s wallpapers with the oriental poetry of Guillaume Barth’s copper birds frozen in the contemplation of a mirror with silver leaves? The nostalgia for old industrial workshops captured through the lens of Klaus Stoeber and the lead lexical punctuations of Jean-Marie Krauth discreetly disseminated in the rooms?
A dense course, as fluid as it is exciting
And yet, by moving through the 800 m² of exhibition hall space, the visitor lets himself be carried away by the fluidity of the proposals. The hanging manages to create between them a succession of connections that make the course as fluid as it is dense – and to be honest, fascinating.
Seeing some names parade, more than one observer of the regional art scene will wonder about the reality of the “short circuit” in question. Geneviève Asse lives in Brittany, Lisa Sartorio, born in Tunisia and lives in Paris, as do Marc Couturier, Pierre Savatier and Ronan Barrot. How would they be soluble in an Alsatian reality?
Recognize the work of gallery owners and the generosity of donors
This is because the exhibition also activates a memory made up of occurrences and occasional trajectories. “Geneviève Asse took part in the liberation of Strasbourg as an ambulance worker for the 1st Army. Being present in the collections of the city that she helped to liberate had for her a very symbolic charge, ”remarks Estelle Pietrzyk. Which explains why Circuits courts also intends to highlight the gallery market, as well as the links forged with collectors in the region, not to mention the association of Friends of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, the institution’s usual partner.
“The exhibition salutes the work of gallery owners like Yves Iffrig or Chantal Bamberger, but also the generosity of collectors like Lionel Van der Gucht, Antonia and Philippe Dolfi or even Philippe Bronn who has managed the collection of Marcel and Gigi Burg since their death. », Adds the director of the museum. A whole ecosystem of contemporary art where artists, gallery owners and collectors participate in the enrichment of the Strasbourg collections. A dynamic of the “short circuit” which deserved to be highlighted.
“Short circuits”, until November 7 at the Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. Free entry until June 30. Reservation on https://demarches.strasbourg.eu/reserver-billets-musees/
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