For all those who have the opportunity to explore the south of France and more precisely the town of Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, in Vaucluse, a free exhibition is not to be missed at the Villa Datris foundation. “Mediterranean, contemporary odysseys” is its title. Seventy-four artists from all around the Mediterranean deliver their vision of what the Latin “mare nostrum” represents for them, a crossroads of civilizations, a place of struggles, crossbreeding and memory.
What is the Mediterranean? To this question, the French historian Fernand Braudel replied: “ Civilizations piled on top of each other. “It is to this stacking, this crossroads, that the Datris foundation wanted to pay homage by inviting 74 artists to express their feelings about the Mediterranean. Stéphane Baumet is the director of the foundation.
« It is a look at the Mediterranean and an observation that we can make on the state of this sea, an observation from an ecological point of view, of the beauty, of the tensions, but it is also an observation of all this wonderful richness, of all these exchanges between artists but also cultures and also history ».
In the rooms and in the garden of this villa-museum founded by the couple Danièle Marcovici and Tristan Fourtine, the works express different concerns depending on the shores of the Mediterranean. Simohammed Fettaka, a Moroccan visual artist, covered the sea with little blue plastic soldiers. A work called “Camouflage”.
« This work was born from a personal experience. Growing up in Tangier, I saw friends, neighbors, family people crossing the Mediterranean illegally. They are called Harragas. And these people who leave, either they succeed or they die. And that’s where I came from the idea that the Mediterranean is a battlefield for me. Either you return as a hero or you die drowned.»
« What are we doing here?»Â
Seen from Franceand through the keen eye of the artist Laurent Perbos, the Mediterranean is a palm tree made of plastic.
« This work is called Ibiza, it refers to the names of beaches or seaside sites where people want to go, which are fantasies of tourism. There, it’s a palm tree that I made from construction site props that I layer. And the bouquet at the top is made up of pool fries and beach buoys All these objects are objects of mass consumption and this immediately brings us back to this question: “What are we doing here? Aren’t we just consuming smoke and mirrors?”»Â
Mirror of larks, mirror of our dreams and our hopes, this sea that we share is also and above all for the artists present at Villa Datris a space of freedom. And sometimes, freedom is the freedom to say “non“. Several North African artists canceled their presence in the exhibition to protest against that of an Israeli artist, Sigalit Landau, who herself ended up throwing in the towel.
â–º On view until November 1 at the Villa Datris foundation.
