Ces personnes qui nous entourent

These People Surrounding Us

September 19 - October 19,  2025

Gallery Le 148 - ALFORTVILLE

Preparing this exhibition, I had the privilege to work well in advance with the town committee in order to comply with the rigorous artistic approach generally required for painting, while conceiving of a curatorial approach addressing various audiences. Upon the first studio visit, we selected the works that could potentially be exhibited at 148 and it quickly became clear that we could stage three or four exhibitions, different from one another. We therefore had to make a choice and leave out a great number of paintings to have a coherent theme, which would also be echoed by the contributors’ essays for the catalogue. The present exhibition was thus built based on two major sequences to be experienced by the audience.

The first one consists in an immersion in painting through the installation of large vertical formats of variable height, but unified by a same width of 200 cm. What remained to be defined was a clear scenography, allowing for a comprehensive reception based on the existing space - a large hall - taking advantage of the structure of the space, namely the rhythm of the framework. The continuity between architecture and painting, a very ancient tradition, allows for an in situ approach that is frequently seen today in contemporary art.

The second sequence would be a gradual gaze towards the painting since the notion of long time when addressing this discipline, is frequently brought forward by artists, critics or historians. After the feeling of a whole, which one gets familiar with little by little, the viewer gradually enters into a dialogue with the observed piece, especially with the subjects on the painted surface and as an artist recently told me while looking at the large triptych : “it is crowded!” [1](1).