Méditerranée

The Mediterranean Sea has always crossed literature as an interior landscape as much as a real horizon. From Colette to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, via Françoise Sagan, the sea appears as a territory of light, slowness and contemplation: a sensitive geography made of crossings, silent ports, summer heat and travel memories. But the Mediterranean also summons the idea of an elsewhere—real or imaginary—opening towards other shores, other climates, other narratives bathed by the same light and the same desire for the horizon.

Gathered on the occasion of the Mediterranean Season, this exhibition brings together artists whose works seem to share certain common sensations: blue, heat, shores, maritime circulations, open horizons, but also a certain gentleness of the gaze on everyday gestures and inhabited landscapes.

From one horizon to another, the paintings and consoles of Ben Arpea display landscapes and still lifes bathed in motionless light. The refined forms of Aldo Chaparro and the silent horizons of Javier Toro Blum prolong this meditation on space, emptiness and clarity. The ceramics of Yoann Estevenin bring forth a discreet bestiary of hedgehogs, frogs, snails and butterflies, like so many presences escaped from a Mediterranean garden or a memory of reading.

Further on, the sea appears in the boats of Rob Tucker, in the knots and deep blues of Hyacinthe Ouattara, as well as in the deployed sails of Lorenzo Vitturi, where Issus and his bodies merge into the wind.

At the water’s edge, Christa David’s photographs explore the sensitive encounter between female bodies and the ocean. The works of Joana Choumali take a careful look at African coastal territories and their discreet rhythms. At Thandiwe Muriu’s, silhouettes blend with fabrics inspired by the tie and dye fabrics of Mombasa, in a play of patterns and colors that extends those of the sea and sky.

The Mediterranean is also a space of circulation, encounters and shared stories. Hassan Hajjaj vividly celebrates the richness of Moroccan culture, between popular traditions and contemporary imaginations. Roxane Mbanga’s paintings evoke the luminous softness of Guadeloupe, the open terraces on the horizon and the suspended moments of summer days. Shourouk Rhaiem’s sculptures evoke the memory of journeys to Tunisia, where everyday objects become fragments of an intimate story.

Without seeking to offer a unique vision of the Mediterranean, the exhibition thus composes a sensitive cartography made up of light, manners, memories and movements. The sea appears less as a border than as a common poetic space—an imaginary territory where views, narratives, and horizons meet.