Toile de Jouy. Regards contemporain at l'Espace d'art contemporain HEC

An exhibition in the context of the bicentenary of the Manuafacture Oberkampf, Jouy en Josas, France, produced as a collaboration betweenthe Musée de la Toile de Jouy and l'Espace d'art contemporain HEC. Over forty contemporary artists were invited to make new works addressing the fabrics of Jouy.

For the work entitled Pastorale, the wall is painted a pale pink, and a series of small figures are painted directly onto the surface. These figures are drawn from the figures in the Arcadian scenes of toiles de Jouy, where happy peasants are shown in pursuit of their rustic activities: gathering the harvest, pressing grapes, picking apples, and so on. Other scenes depict their leisure activities, often showing amorous couples. These are delightful scenes, traditionally repeat-printed in a lovely cream and blue, though other colours exist. The blue of their original versions was that of indigo, a dye linked to the slave trade. The charming lives played out across the weave of the cloth conceal the method of production of the cloth.

My painting separate the couples, eliminating the men while reproducing the figures of women, cut from their context (clearly, il n’y pas de rapport sexuel). A second work, entitled Nous deux, a lorgnette, which opens with a nifty snap mechanism, its lenses engraved with the words nous deux, one word on each lens, in a glacé kid box, its lid embossed with the words nous deux and lined with an antique toile de Jouy, is presented in a small vitrine nearby.

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