The newspaper “Sud Ouest” features an exhibition at Maison Manpai with photographer Arnaud Rinuccini
Transcription of the article “Nine Perspectives on ‘Emotional Harmony” published in the Sud Ouest newspaper
“Nine Perspectives on ‘Emotional Harmony”.
Nine visual artists from around the world explore the theme of serenity in an exhibition at the Maison Manpaï in Les Bassins à flots. In March 2023, Manpai opened, “a place dedicated to holistic wellbeing, which addresses both the body and the mind,” according to founder Jean Bercy. For this purpose, the center offers a range of individual treatments such as massage, meditation, naturopathy and sophrology, as well as a variety of sports such as Pilates, yoga, dance, karate, Tai-Chi, QiGong and other activities.
These include the intuitive drawing workshop run by artist Alexandra Mas, which explores the automatic drawing developed by the Surrealists as a means of expressing the subconscious. Jean Bercy’s cross-disciplinary approach echoes the importance of art and creative expression. He likes to quote Victor Hugo: “L’art, c’est le reflet que renvoie l’âme humaine éblouie de la splendeur du beau.” (Art is the reflection of the human soul dazzled by the splendor of beauty.)
“Art” and “Activism“
The exhibition currently on show at Manpaï is also about beauty and inner peace. Alexandra Mas is the driving force behind this project. Originally from Transylvania, this artist left Paris in 2011 to settle in Bordeaux, where she has established her studio in Caudéran. With a body of work spanning sculpture, performance, painting, video and installation, her international reputation is growing. Next September, she will take over the Palazzo Pisani Revedin with Artivism., “off” the Venice Biennale. Behind this catchphrase combining “art” and “activism,” a variable-geometry collective born in 2019 is unfolding, connecting artists, gallerists, and thinkers around the world with shared concerns such as climate change, the environment, and other social issues.
International artists
For the time being, Artivism is stopping off in the Bassins à flots district, accompanied by nine artists.We discover Celia Gouveiac, a Brazilian visual artist based in Bordeaux, with “Matrice Divine”. A vast acrylic painting that celebrates the cosmos through a chromatic ballet of organic motifs in expansive movement. Also present are German artist Hanna Mare, whose resins on canvas are shaped by the Baltic Sea, where she immersed them; Alexandra Mas, whose sculpture fuses gold leaf with some of her paintings transferred onto aluminum; American artist Tori Tasch, whose paper insects colonize the gallery’s columns and walls; and Christopher Lavenair, whose images of women taken from magazines are enhanced with gouache, acrylic and grease pencil.
Nearby, François Pohu-Lefevre’s photographs sublimate urban detritus without alteration? Annette Werndl’s small-format, expressionist abstracts draw their inspiration from music, while photographer Arnaud Rinuccini composes a landscape as if recomposing a souvenir, between memory and fantasy.
Anna Maisonneuse
