Elspeth Diederix, Tulipa for UMCU, 2015. Tirage pigmentaire, 40×26,6 cm. Courtesy Elspeth Diederix et galerie Stigter Van Doesburg, Amsterdam.
Sarah Moon, Day & Night, 1997. Tirage argentique, 59×71 cm. Courtesy de l’artiste.
Lorenzo Vitturi, Red Cotisso, Green Pigment, Wood in Arìn, Caminantes, 2019
Brendan Barry, Common poppy, 2020. Tirage pigmentaire, 61×51 cm Courtesy de l’artiste.
Valérie Belin, « Sans titre », série Bouquets, 2008. Impression jet d’encres UV sur papier de coton, 155×122 cm (sans cadre), 187×154 cm (avec cadre). Courtesy Valérie Belin et galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris/ Bruxelles.
Leendert Blok, Bleuet à bourgeons (Centaurea cyanus), vers 1930. Tirage pigmentaire, 13×18 cm. Courtesy Nationaal Archief/collection Spaarnestad/Leendert Blok.
Philippe Cognée, Tournesol, 2019. Peinture à la cire sur toile, 200×150 cm. Courtesy Philippe Cognée et Templon, Paris – Brussels – NYC, ©Artist Studio.
Jean-Vincent Simonet, Novembre, Flowers LAST#SF, 2023. Impression jet d’encre ultrachrome sur film plastique de 350g/m2, lavé et fixé, 70×100cm. Courtesy de l’artiste.
Damien Cadio, Not all roses, 2017. Huile sur toile, 70×95 cm. Courtesy de l’artiste.
Elspeth Diederix, Blue iris, 2021. Tirage pigmentaire, 90×60 cm. Courtesy Elspeth Diederix et galerie Stigter Van Doesburg, Amsterdam.
Brendan Barry, Labyrinth dahlia, 2022. Pièce unique, photographie chromogénique réalisée à l’aide d’une camera obscura, 102×127 cm. Courtesy de l’artiste.
Grégoire Alexandre, « Sans titre », de la série Le Jardin, 2021. Tirage pigmentaire, 30×40 cm. Courtesy de l’artiste.

LA ROSE EST SANS POURQUOI

Grégoire Alexandre, Brendan Barry, Valérie Belin, Leendert Blok, Damien Cadio, Philippe Cognée, Elspeth Diederix, Sarah Moon, Jean-Vincent Simonet

January 20 – May 11, 2024

During the last two years of his life, Édouard Manet produced sixteen small paintings of flower bouquets. In these modest formats, the painter of Déjeuner sur l’herbe and Olympia traces on canvas the same minimal composition, simple in appearance: a bouquet arranged in a glass or crystal vase. Roses, tulips, lilacs, peonies: the flowers vary, as does the shape of the vase. The framing is tight, and we don’t see anything of the table in his Paris studio, which he can no longer leave while bedridden. The subject remains before him and us: the flower, or rather, what he has pursued all his life: the painting of the world. In these small canvases, in which he concentrates his last efforts, he summons all his painting skills to give existence to a flower “as much in the air and as much a flower as anything else, and yet painted in full solid paste”, as Vincent Van Gogh wrote to his brother after seeing one of these paintings.

La Rose est sans pourquoi brings together nine artists, photographers and painters who, for a time or for good, have made the flower a recurring motif in their work. The title borrows from a poem by the monk Angelus Silesius, taken from his masterpiece of 17th-century German literature: “The rose is without why, blooms because it blooms. Does not care for itself, does not wish to be seen.” The exhibition is dedicated to the flower as an epiphany of the living world, and to the humility it imposes on the artist who perseveres in representing it. Each artist takes inspiration from the sources of his or her medium – painting, photography, in other words paste, light, chemistry, ink – to create on canvas or print, as if by empathy, an encounter with this decidedly indifferent, free, evanescent flower.
 

OPENING

Friday January 19, from 6 pm

in the presence of the artists

GUIDED TOURS

Saturdays January 20, February 17*, May 11, 4pm
*dubbed in LSF
Thursday, March 21, 7pm
Tuesday April 9, 12:30 pm

WORKSHOP FOR CHILDREN

with Sophie Grassart
artist
5/10 years
Sunday, March 24, 2:30 pm

LECTURES

with Valérie Belin
photographer
Thursday, February 1, 5:30 p.m.*

with Jean-Vincent Simonet
photographer
Thursday March 14, 5:30pm*

*as part of the Écoute l’artiste cycle, in the auditorium of the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen.
Entrance: 26 bis, rue Jean Lecanuet

with Emanuele Coccia
philosopher
Thursday April 18, 7pm

 

All events are free of charge.
Reservations at info@centrephotographique.com