vingt-quatre heures
Neuf de
Chantalpetit
Curated by Juliette Laffon
Exhibition from January 30 to February 23, 2024
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Chantalpetit was born in Agadir in 1951. She spends her childhood between Morocco and France. From 1970 to 1972, she studied at the Decorative Arts, as well as at the Beaux-Arts de Paris. Between 1973 and 1979, she devoted herself to theatre, while pursuing a graphic work. She collaborates as an illustrator with various magazines and publishing houses (Gallimard, D'au éditeur, les nouvelles littéraires, Elle, Le fou parle, etc.). During these years, she was a member of the GEL group (free expression group), an experimental theatre company and also created several scenographies, notably for Roger Blin. At the same time, she met Roman Cieslewicz, Roland Topor and the members of the Panique group who invited her to participate in the Universal Panic exhibition, at the Maison de la Culture in Rennes in 1980. She then begins to paint and abandons the theater. From 1987 to 2019, she teaches at the Penninghen graphic arts school. From the 2000s, she integrated sculpture, video and performance into her practice.
His work is regularly presented in France and abroad, notably at the Jean Briance gallery (1984, 1988) at the Jacques Elbaz gallery (1995), at the Maison Rouge (2004, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2016), at the Gobelins Manufacture (2011), in Marseille-Provence 2013 (2013), at the Frac Picardie (2013, 2016, 2018), at the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht (2015), at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Saint-
Lô (2018), at the Centrum Kultury Zamek in Poznan (2019), at the Museum of Grenoble (2019) and is part of many public and private collections (Fnac, Frac Picardie, Frac Île-de-France, National Museum of Modern Art, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Stockholm Museum of Modern Art, agnès b. collection, Antoine de Galbert collection, etc.). She has just published her first Chantalpetit monograph – 19702023 at Éditions Dilecta.
Standing in a space, observing the movement of the sun, shadows and rays, incidences and accidents, then painting that. This: the optical vertigo caused by light when it breaks into a place, as common as it may be, and on the pupil, as singular as it may be. Goya and Van Gogh tried to see that, that sun in the face, that blaze which is sometimes a hallucination. In the middle of the 1980s, Chantalpetit tried his hand at exercise. She paints with light in a space of which I do not know what it is – the room of Arles or quinta del achever – but of which my eyes teach me that it is closed, and that I am enclosed in a box whose sixth partition is on my back. So I am locked in front of a trickle, facing the daylight at a certain time, an hour that gives its name to the paintings. (...)
We could have stopped there, at this diluvian paint contained in a Pandora’s box. We rarely return to the same room, except with our ears cut off, or in the house of the deaf, otherwise blinded. Except that little, she, tried the experiment. She returned to the box, in the bare room, in the camera obscura, she took her brushes but also, because time has passed and the palette has been enriched, with sequins and beads, pastel and acrylic, all the mess of the world – gold and night. Nothing holds her in check as long as poetry happens. She doesn’t care about purity. She wants to see, and say. It is not painting, but drawing, they say. But who still believes in this old typology thought for the cartels of thought? I only know that it is no longer canvas, but Figueras paper, velvety like silk, solid and tender like a skin. It’s ink. These are letters too, which she traps in the material. It’s writing, therefore. Thanks to chantalpetit, I see how painting is not mute poetry but spasmed prose, a haiku. A roll of the dice, a whip, a punch. A helping hand so that my eye can finally see. (...)
Colin Lemoine
In the autumn of 2010, I was discovering with astonishment the 'landscapes' of Chantalpetit, large canvases on the scale of the vast workshop she then occupied in Ivry. I had just joined the team of Marseille-Provence 2013 European Capital of Culture.
I was in charge of the exhibition that would be dedicated to him in La Ciotat in the summer of 2013. Since this first meeting, I have regularly visited him in Malakoff and am with an interest that does not fade, the development of a prolific work, demanding, which continues to renew itself. Attentive to his research, attentive to his polymorphic practice that enjoys venturing into new fields of experimentation and imaginary worlds, I have the privilege of being aware of his latest creations. Driven by an overflowing energy, chantalpetit always has a work in progress. Painting, sculpting, making a video, producing new pieces is for her an imperative. On vacation, far from the workshop, his notebooks take over.
Invited by Yann Toma to exhibit at the Sorbonne Artgallery, it is only once finalised the monograph that had totally monopolized her for several months, that she finds herself in the spring on the way to the studio and starts working towards the exhibition.
Sorbonne Artgallery unfolds in the Soufflot gallery of the Centre Panthéon-Sorbonne, a vast passageway crossed by students and professors.
It presents a succession of nine shallow wall showcases, with a metal frame from which the glasses have been removed and in which the works are usually presented. chantalpetit carries out first of all, without preparatory studies, four drawings which, as they are added, become large paper banners whose dimensions exceed those of the display cases. This choice testifies to his reluctance to enter the huts, his propensity to bend the rules, his inclination for short cuts. (...)
Juliette Laffon