Fables, Formes, Figures — Emmanuel Van der Meulen & Raphaël Zarka — La MABA — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: March 9 → May 13, 2018

“Fables are the alphabet of humanity; with them were written some of the first philosophic certainties of men; and for this reason they must be like abstractions in algebra, or like pieces in chess.” G.K Chesterton Fables, Formes, Figures, an exclusive exhibition of Emmanuel Van der Meulen and Raphaël Zarka held at the Maison d’Art Bernard Anthonioz of Nogent-sur-Marne from March 9th to May 13th 2018 sheds light on the dialogue the two artists have opened several years ago. Was it at the end of their fine art studies, after graduating from the ENSBA (École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris)? After their stay at the Villa Medicis and the original relationship they developed with Italian art? Perhaps this dialogue has always been there, and goes beyond the notions of time, space and individuals, as part of a continuum of experiments on the interaction between a form and a context.

The exhibition puts together two visions expressed through the field of painting for Emmanuel Van der Meulen and sculpture for Raphaël Zarka, and shows the singularity of each of them while questioning their similarities, their points of friction, confrontation and rupture. As these works exemplify a certain use of geometry and structure, and explore—internal, external, static or dynamic—equilibriums, they also create a space where one artist’s research is continued by the other, and vice versa.

The rhythm of the title Fables, Formes, Figures, borrowed to André Chastel, allows us to consider the plurality of each term, like several possible entry points into the exhibition, and beyond, to consider the latter as the place of their synthesis, a place of fictions and fables that helps us think the world through different forms.