Didier Marcel and Loïc Raguénès, Aperçu avant impressions

View of the Didier Marcel and Loïc Raguénès exhibition "Aperçu avant impressions", Bétonsalon - Center for Art and Research, Paris, 2008. Image: Aurélien Mole

An exhi­bi­tion curated by the stu­dents of the curating pro­gramme from La Sorbonne - Paris 4

For this year exhi­bi­tion pro­ject, the Master’s stu­dents invited Didier Marcel to show his work in Bétonsalon Art and Research Centre.

The artist pro­posed, together with Loïc Raguénès, to pro­duce an orig­inal set of works con­ceived as a vibrant response to Bétonsalon unusual gallery space.

Aperçu avant impres­sions is con­structed through a con­stant dia­logue between the artists and the ten cura­tors who will develop at the same time an impor­tant number of events (edu­ca­tional visits, dis­cus­sions, film pro­jec­tions) to facil­i­tate public access and to mul­tiply the approaches to the exhi­bi­tion (from medieval imag­i­nary to ecology).

Thanks to the hos­pi­tality and sup­port offered by Bétonsalon, a young art centre in which reflec­tion on cura­to­rial prac­tices is core to all activ­i­ties, some inter­esting devel­op­ments are to expect.

Well known for his inte­rior land­scapes com­bining romantic indus­trial ruins and lawns made of real fitted car­pets, Didier Marcel con­tinues to explore the ter­ri­tory and pushes his way through forests and fields. Loïc Raguénès enlarges images and paints scrappy pic­tures of every kind (from Chapi Chapo to Hokusaï) as if he wanted to tell us a story and to con­fuse us at the same time. A common point between them: they work on sec­ondary aspects, the blanks of images and his­tory.

View of the Didier Marcel and Loïc Raguénès exhibition "Aperçu avant impressions", Bétonsalon - Center for Art and Research, Paris, 2008. Image: Aurélien Mole

Invited by the young cura­tors of the Master "L’art con­tem­po­rain et son expo­si­tion" (Paris IV) to exhibit their work at Bétonsalon, Didier Marcel and Loïc Raguénès decided to trans­form the gallery in a one-month utopia. Utopia implies of course a crit­i­cism of the existing world and at the same time an affir­ma­tion of an alter­na­tive model.

In this pecu­liar exhi­bi­tion space, the artists will build a modern fairy world – a drawn ground for a vivid land­scape, a bunch of trees whose bark is del­i­cately pow­dered, and some snowy images made of little dots. A color album that will come alive in front of us. It will be con­structed as a zen garden, words and ideas will be free to move around and some­time may be to settle.