Roman Moriceau → MACVAL

ROMAN MORICEAU
"Rose is a rose is a rose"
Group show

Exhibition of a selection of 23 prints commissioned by the Department for the Roseraie du Val-de-Marne.

Salon

The Salon has become, for the time being, a bonbonnière, another name that could have served as a title for the presentation of part of the collection of prints commissioned each year by the Department of Val-de-Marne in order to enhance one of its most remarkable gardens, the Roseraie located in L'Haÿ-les-Roses, and to affirm a proactive approach to commissions from artists.

Rather than simply hanging according to the chronology of commissions, this first opus in a series promoting the Department's print collection has chosen to place itself under the aegis of the American poet, playwright and writer Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) in memory of this verse: "She would engrave on the tree Rose is a Rose is a Rose is a Rose until she went all the way around it." This gesture of engraving a tree is not without evoking certain protocols of contemporary artists who, like graffiti, leave messages in the very bark of trees. What could be closer to the engraver's tool than the prickle of a rose to notch, to scratch or simply to draw? They are no longer prickles but splinters or pins to retain what is less well preserved: the fragrance or the seasons. A bit like Gertrude Stein and her collection The World is Round, the 23 prints chosen evoke this universe which sometimes assumes its slightly faded or outdated character.

This presentation alternates some images related to roses, their lexical and semantic field and others are more mischievous as if they were jumping rope or playing hopscotch under our eyes. "Rose is a rose is a rose" thus responds to the logic of the tale and the rhyme. Nor does it forget the very shape of the Roseraie which, under the hands of the artists, becomes almost cabalistic, a visual assonance of the cadastral and the astral.

With works by Martine Aballéa, Valerio Adami, Dove Allouche, Raphaël Barontini, Carole Benzaken, Jean-Pierre Bertrand, Mark Brusse, Ali Cherri, Delphine Coindet, Mario D'Souza, Nicolas Floc'h, José Gamarra, Cat Loray, Lahouari Mohammed Bakir, Roman Moriceau, Eva Nielsen, Pavlos, Sarkis, Anne Slacik, Valérie Sonnier, Patrick Tosani, Jean-Luc Verna, Claude Viallat.