En chemin – Towards…

En chemin presents the work of seven artists who use sculpture, photography, video, narrative, and painting to engage in very personal interactions with the outdoor world around them.

The artists have each entered into an intimate dialogue with impalpable and intangible elements of nature, perceiving the world through their sensibility. What do these works tell us about reality? For these artists, is it a personal and universal quest for the sublime, or a way of tapping into the energy of the world – the signs and poetic forms which govern it, its balance and instability, its harmony and tension? In order to try to make the invisible visible, certain artists draw on their personal life by exploring time, space and the spiritual, thus demonstrating the porous nature of these domains.

While some artists’ practice initiates an immediate dialogue in response to the transience of life, others attune themselves to the cycle of the seasons and let time run its course. The exhibition invites visitors to slow down in an increasingly fast-paced world.

Seven artists take us on a sensitive journey at the heart of the Patio space at the Musée d'arts, which is bathed in summer sunshine.

Charbel-joseph H. Boutros, towards the intangible,

Marcelline Delbecq, towards narrative and fiction,

Anne-Charlotte Finel, towards an intermediate state,

Dominique Ghesquière, towards a sensitive appropriation,

Patrick Neu, towards virtuoso delicacy,

Abraham Poincheval, towards the solitude of experience,

and Evariste Richer, towards the impalpable.

Chief Curator: Sophie Lévy, Director and Chief Curator, Musée d’arts de Nantes
Scientific Curatorship: Katell Jaffrès, Head of Contemporary Art Collections, Musée d’arts de Nantes.

Captions and credits:

Dominique Ghesquière, Terre de profondeur, 2013 (detail) © Dominique Ghesquière / Cnap / Photo André Morin