exhibition

Aimé Mpane

Le modèle noir de Géricault à Matisse

from 26 March to 21 July 2019

Musée d'Orsay
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By adopting a multidisciplinary approach, between the history of art and the history of ideas, this exhibition examines aesthetic, political, social and racial issues as well as the imagination revealed by the representation of black figures in the visual arts, from the abolition of slavery in France (1794) to the present day.

 

While offering a continuous perspective, it focuses on three key periods: the era of abolition (1794-1848), the period of the New Painting until Matisse's discovery of the Harlem Renaissance and the beginnings of the avant-garde of the 20th century and successive generations of post-war and contemporary artists. 

 

The exhibition is mainly concerned with the question of the model, and therefore the dialogue between the artist who paints, sculpts, engraves or photographs and the model who poses. In particular, it explores how the representation of black subjects in the major works of Theodore Géricault, Charles Cordier, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Edouard Manet, Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse, as well as photographers Nadar and Carjat, has evolved. 

 

At the end of the exhibition, the roles are reversed with two ironic works by Aimé Mpane (Olympia II) and Larry Rivers (I like Olympia in black face) where the mistress became black and the white servant girl.

 

 

Aimé Mpane (Democratic Republic of Congo) is in residence at the Cité internationale des arts through the programme of the Institut français.

Practical Information

Practical information and hours on the Musée d'Orsay website.