INTI-PUNKU

Originally, music governed Baptiste Ozenne's life. Over time and its initiations, contemporary art enters Laronde to form the poetic dance that will make its world resonate. Far from being a simple matter of acquisition, the life of a collector can become, to quote the poet Arthur Davison Ficke, “one of the most humanist occupations seeking to illustrate, through the assembly of significant relics, the march of the human spirit in its quest for beauty”. Initially an art dealer and collector, Baptiste Ozenne trusted his instincts. From his travels and his encounters, projects emerge that make sense with his humanist values. His first collaboration with the Strouk Gallery dates back to 2016. This year, at the invitation of the gallery, he acts as a curator by sharing with us his vision of art through the selection of contemporary artists discovered during his stops.

Literally, “Gate of the Sun”, Inti-Punku is the most important gateway to the Inca city. At each summer solstice, the sun's rays pierce through its enclosures. It is of course also the symbol of a passage, of a renewal of oneself, like the Strouk Gallery. The opening of its space on Rue du Mail announces its metamorphosis. Since it is a process, every passage is at once a here and there, a separation and an adhesion. It is therefore driven by the desire to join the story of the present that the gallery supports the emergence of another relationship with the world that will shape future visions. By taking this step and by regularly inviting a new curator, Strouk, in his role of intermediary, is preparing to tell us a sensitive and renewed story of the contemporary scene.

The exhibition presented, like the personality of Baptiste Ozenne, is transcultural, multiple and sensitive. Despite the importance of cultural and economic divides in the world, forms and ideas manage to travel. Visual, cultural and spiritual references are now shared and disseminated everywhere at any time. This new intermingling of the territory gives life to the first chapter “Inti-Punku” whose language, as we will see, remains universal.

The exhibition becomes weaving, let's pull the first thread.

In this dream city, space is shared according to the origin of its inhabitants, the artists. African territory gets the ball rolling at 2 AvenueMatignon with Gideon Appah, Igwe Michael and Simphiwe Ndzube. The bodies are facing us. A swarm of magic is sweeping over the city. The tiger and the snake join us in following them to represent, in the person of Jordy Kerwick, Australia. At the bend in the path, a cartoonish universe inspired by pop art forges a dream world, that of the America of Austin Lee and Austyn Taylor. The rest of the visit takes us to the Asian continent (Takeru Amano, Roby Dwi Antono, Vivi Cho, Jang Koal, Otani Workshop) and its kawaii, almost naive visions of characters who seem to come out of a manga.

Some sacred songs are born from these cohabitation in the manner of the duo formed for the occasion by Marcella Barceló and Vincent Beaurin. Let's continue this world tour in Iran in space 5 rue du Mail with Mamali Shafahi. Like a family album, the rows of faces of Norwegian director Trude Viken open the curtain of intimacy for us. The works of the English Alexander James and the Ukrainian Dzvinya Podlyashetska form an echo: they suit us to a colorful interiority, a kind of new contemporary expressionism. Javier Martin's Andalusian light guides us to the neighborhood of French artists (Léo Caillard, Olivier Kosta-Théfaine, Prosper Legault, Anita Molinero, Lou Ros, Julien Saudubray, Valentin van der Meulen) who are all singular in their practices (Léo Caillard, Olivier Kosta-Théfaine, Prosper Legault, Anita Molinero, Lou Ros, Julien Saudubray, Valentin van der Meulen) who are all singular in their practices, sometimes questioning nature, image, matter or city. Like the poet Pierre Reverdy, we can say that art, like poetry, “is intelligible to the mind and sensitive to the heart only in the form of a certain combination of words” (...). In our case, the combination concerns the presentation of singular, different works (scenography) “which by setting themselves assume a particular reality that makes art incomparable to any other.”

Every journey has a beginning and an end. In this imaginary museum, a taste for colors is emerging, for a figuration that evokes mythologies, ecology and the link between beings.

“Push the door, the sun is inside” (Paul Nougé, 1925)


Artists:

APPAH Gideon

BARCELÓ Marcella

BEAURIN Vincent

CAILLARD Léo

CHO Vivi

DZVINYA Podlyashetska

Igwe Michael

James Alexander

Kerwick Jordy

KOAL Jang

KOSTA-THEFAINE Olivier

Lee Austin

LEGAULT Prosper

MARTIN Javier

MOLINERO Anita

NDZUBE Simphiwe

OTANI Workshop

ROBY DWI Antono

ROS Lou

SAUDUBRAY Julien

SHAFAHI Mamali

Taylor Austyn

TRUDE Viken

VAN DER MEULEN Valentin

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Catalogue de l'exposition

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