May 14 • july 02 2022

Invitation made to the Anne Barrault gallery

Espace à vendre celebrates spring with an original three-part exhibition presented by artist Karine Rougier, who has been with the Espace à vendre project in Nice since its inception, and writer and art theorist Nina Leger.

  • Château :

Curated by Nina Leger and Karine Rougier

Amélie Bigard, Io Burgard, Rémi Bragard, Clara Cimelli, Guillaume Constantin, Chioma Ebinama, Alice Gauthier, Vidya Gastaldon, Diane Guyot De Saint Michel, Christian Hidaka, Jean Baptiste Janisset, Raymond Pettibon, Karine Rougier, Ajay Sharma, Vinta Sharma, Sophie Varin, Sore Venus, Raphaël Zarka

  • Gallery :

Invitation to the Anne Barrault Gallery

Dominique Figarella, Neïla Czermak Ichti, Marie Losier, Ibrahim Meïte Sikely, Guillaume Pinard, Stéphanie Saadé, Lassana Sarre, Roland Topor

  • Showroom :

Invitation to the students of the arc

In collaboration with Les beaux arts de Marseille

Zélia Alleaume, Julie Amengual, Christopher Bargell, Nina Boughanim, Emma Cambier, Anne-Marie Carrour, Nathalia-Golda Cima, Adélaïde Cothet, Camille Couavoux, Joséphine Gélis, Alice Le Dû, Margot Malaubier, Carolin Martin, Nina Moulin, Lolita Perez, Marie Perraud, Théa Terrien, Cara Schmitz, Zoé Sinatt

——

Dear…,

I am writing to you today to tell you about a project we are building with a dear friend, Karine Rougier. She is an artist and, like me, she teaches at the Beaux-arts de Marseille. Since the beginning of the year, we have initiated a teaching program called “Valley of Wonders”, after the place located on the slopes of Mount Bego where, 5,000 years ago, men and women made tens of thousands of rock engravings. 

Since we have had it in mind, the Valley has disconcerted us: at a distance, it acts and upsets our forms and methods, so that what was supposed to be a course has become a group, what was supposed to be a teaching has become an exchange, what was supposed to go in one direction has opened up to unexpected currents. Soon, our dreams of the Valleys will take on a new form, that of an exhibition, which will be held in Nice, at the Espace à vendre gallery, from May 13 to July 2. 

Of course, this exhibition will be called Vallée des merveilles – what other name could one hope for? – but it will not be a thematic exhibition intended to evoke or represent the original Valley. Rather, it will be a continuation, in the contemporary, of what the stories of Mont Bego inspire. It will be a territory populated by free forms and sentimental creatures, a place capable of welcoming enigmas without solving them and without bringing back to the known what escapes us, above all, it will be a group, a community, a way of inhabiting a space together. Even if they are immobile, we want the works to dance together. Even if they are silent, we want them to whisper and sing together.

Before writing to you, I took up a text by Hélène Bessette called La Grande Ballade, which opens with the words “As in a dream. Embarkation for the Strange”. It suits us well. This text tells of a transatlantic crossing and, a few pages after casting off, we can read these lines: “To be astonished together. To glide together. Towards other countries deep in the shadows. (…) To marvel together over the fog. To tremble together in the fogs pierced by hoarse calls. Together. With the others. 

Held by so much community”. This is what we wish for this exhibition and, if you are willing, we would like this ensemble to count you among its members.

Regards,

Nina Léger