SUBSTRATE
September 4 to October 27, 2022
Collective exhibition, no-made
The villa "Le Roc Fleuri", Cap d'Ail.
For its twenty-second year of exhibition on the site of the Villa Le Roc Fleuri in Cap d'Ail, the artists of no-made and its guest artists (local, national and international) were asked to respond to the theme SUBSTRAT.
Through this word SUBSTRATE, it is the feeling of essence, of the basis of contemporary art but also its mutations, its developments that are sought. SUBSTRATE then becomes the fundamental support of the moving plastic act, perhaps the solid base of artistic proposals?
We will exhibit the plastic, sound and performance proposals of twenty-seven artists. These proposals will define a stroll between what we will call: the apparent, the reigns of the living, death and rebirth, stratum and trace and finally under the house.
The apparent is situated in SUBSTRAT as a welcome for the visitor which from the outset questions the vanity, roots and heritage of plastic action.
The kingdoms of the living will use the mineral, the vegetable or the animal as SUBSTRATE of the work in its development. Death and rebirth traps materials, destroys them, reconstructs them. Its transformations make the plastic productions of artists kinetic in "nothing is lost, nothing is created: everything is transformed" Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier.
Strate et trace is a narration of SUBSTRAT in its chronology and its desire for memory in the form of written traces, installations, mineral, pictorial or sound fragments, witnesses of the effects of time. Sous la maison ends the journey of this exhibition in enclosed spaces outside the garden, where videos and installations dialogue and respond to each other on the reasons for SUBSTRAT.
(1).jpeg)
Continuity
Cultural summer 2023 -
DRAC Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur "Reopening the World in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur"
Simone Veil School, Carros
CIAC, Carros Castle
RESTITUT I ON
From Saturday October 21
as of December 17, 2023
A big thank you to the Ciac to all its team who are a great support, Chloe of course, but also Christine, Laetitia, Hélène, Claire and Fred as well as to the team of the school of Simone Veil, Malvina, Stéphane and so on… Thank you to the Drac DRAC Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur for all its support. And finally the most important, the children who made these discoveries alongside me.
Working with children
All the plastic work will focus on wood, trees, and the forest. An observation of the wooden structures and a reproduction of them will allow us to think of the tree as a living being before all. The work of understanding the construction of wood aims to bring a new perspective on the trees that surround us.
An excursion to a natural location to collect work tools such as dead wood in an environmentally friendly manner allows you to establish contact with plants and to think of your natural environment as a creative resource. Children are invited to communicate with the trees and offer them gifts.
The multiplicity and repetition of gestures performed on different supports, notably fabric, have the aim of thinking of the unique being within a community system, the tree and the forest. It is the gathering of a multitude of isolated elements that allow the birth of a new and more complete unity.
Color through the use of paint on fabric is a work of personal and intuitive feeling. Colors are the emotions and feelings that run through us and the trees.
Continuity
And works by the children of the Simone Veil Leisure Center in Carros
From October 21 to December 17, 2023
As part of the 2023 Cultural Summer "Reopening the World" organized by the DRAC PACA, the entire team of the International Center for Contemporary Art is delighted to host Continuity, the exhibition showcasing the results of artist Mona Barbagli's creative residency and her guidance of art workshops for the children of the Simone Veil School Leisure Center in Carros. The exhibition features works created by the artist during her residency as well as pieces produced by the children.
Born in 1995 in Nice, Mona Barbagli’s childhood was deeply influenced by her exposure to nature and contemporary art through her family’s world. A graduate of the DNAP program at Pavillon Bosio in Monaco, the DNSEP at the École des Beaux-Arts de Nantes Saint-Nazaire, and a Master’s in Civilization, Culture, and Society from Nantes, she now lives and works in Nice.
Her work instinctively maintains a close relationship with nature, viewed through the lens of emotions. By conducting a sensitive and structured analysis of the inner world and its interaction with the outer world, she constructs her practice around protocols and often a serial system.
Her creative experience in Carros during the summer of 2023 allowed her to further her research. Upon her arrival, her steps led her to a path near the Art Center, the Saint-Sébastien path connecting the village of Carros to Broc. Along this trail, mostly frequented by walkers, Mona encountered a dead but still-standing tree that seemed to call out to her. Moved by this humble lifeless body, she undertook to craft a protective shroud made of fragments of white cotton fabric, adhered together with gum arabic—a material gentle enough to respect the fragile bark and the insects that continued to traverse the trunk while it dried. Performing this funerary rite for the tree's remains represented, for Mona, an acknowledgment of its life and the possibility of its consciousness. This protective shroud symbolizes the transition from life to death, and once dry, cut along its entire length, and removed from the trunk, it bears on its inner surface the marks of the time that elapsed between its birth and death. Displayed vertically on a frame of light spruce, it draws attention with the soft luminosity shining through the fabric, a promise of warm protection. The open thoracic cage, resembling an inhalation movement—an artwork titled Vital Breath—naturally invites visitors to step inside.
Through the resemblance of this wooden structure to a ship’s hull, Mona also evokes the ancient funerary rites that involved the deceased embarking on a final journey to the afterlife in a vessel.
Under glass domes about fifteen centimeters tall each, small translucent objects rest on three wooden discs. For her Diamonds, Mona Barbagli chose to celebrate the beauty of wood by visually revealing the potential consciousness of different trees, as if bringing them back to life in all their preciousness. Extremely thin triangular slices of wood are placed in molds shaped like faceted gemstones, then covered with gum arabic. Once unmolded, the marquetry-like wooden jewels, backlit, reveal their splendors: lilac appears red on its growth rings, apricot wood takes on a darker reddish-orange hue overall, and pomegranate—evoking Mona’s fond childhood memories in her grandmother’s garden—displays the infinite delicacy of its rings.
The works Column of Light, Fragments, and Heart of Light predate the residency and complement the exhibition.
Column of Light is a suspended free canvas made of the primary colors of additive light synthesis: red, green, and blue. Positioned vertically, like a standing human between earth and sky, the column of colors seems to dissolve into small rainbows on either side.
Heart of Light could perfectly illustrate the famous words of the fox in Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince: "One sees clearly only with the heart." For Mona, the image of an anatomical heart emerged naturally, as emotions are physically experienced in our human bodies. This heart, created using screen printing, is traversed not by blood flow but by light (additive synthesis), as light is as intangible as our emotions. The artist writes: "I like to think that the most powerful emotion is love. I see in this heart our deepest humanity, our capacity to feel emotions, and especially our capacity to love and be loved."
Fragments, lastly, is an installation depicting the growth of an elm branch splitting into two. Each stage of evolution, seen in successive slices, is finely engraved on white glass plates, each suspended by white fabric ribbons attached to an olive branch, which itself is hung from the ceiling. Two viewpoints on either side of the installation allow the observer to take in the entire series of stacked engravings at a glance, like a sequence of doors passed through with the gaze.
Accompanied by the sound of cicadas recorded during her work on the Saint-Sébastien path, the exhibition offers an entry into the artist's sensitive world.
Christine Enet, Director of the International Center for Contemporary Art in Carros.
Plastic Arts Projects with the Children
Text by Mona Barbagli:
"The entire plastic arts project revolves around wood, trees, and forests. Observing wood structures and reproducing them allows us to think of the tree as a living being above all. The work of understanding wood’s construction aims to provide a fresh perspective on the trees around us.
An excursion into a natural area to respectfully collect materials, such as already-dead wood, helps establish a connection with plants and view the natural environment as a creative resource. The children were invited to communicate with the trees and offer them gifts.
The multiplicity and repetition of gestures performed on various media, particularly fabric, aim to consider the individual within a communal system, the tree within the forest. It is the assembly of numerous isolated elements that gives birth to a new and more complete unity.
Color, through the use of paint on fabric, is a work of personal and intuitive feeling. Colors represent the emotions and sensations that flow through us and the trees."
Workshop Transmission
Small handkerchiefs
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |
Painting workshop
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
A pebble for my friend the tree
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
Portraits of trees
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
 |