Valletta Contemporary gallery is currently hosting French Idea[L], a collective exhibition featuring the work of three reputable French artists – Dominique de Beir, Christian Jaccard and Denis Pondruel curated by Olivier Plique.

The show celebrates a national thirst for a collective ideal, as well as for freedom of the people of France, contextualised by the current socio-dynamic politics of expression and repression under spotlight with the movement of yellow vests.

The exhibit focuses on the themes of liberté, égalité, fraternité (freedom, equality and fraternity), which are related to the famous motto of the French republic. 

As expressed by the essayist Luc Olivier d’Algange: “The French idea is irreducible to ‘values’. It is with greater clarity that we wish to illuminate the style of our actions and our sentences. 

Dominique de Beir

“To the ‘values’ that reduce to some absurd common denominator, we will always prefer the luminous freedom we enjoy from the royal fire of the principles.”

The three French artists represent this idea within a personal ‘internal revolution’. 

In love with the same freedom aimed at challenging the very status of the piece of art, and following a narrative thread, each artist has created his/her own marker tools with a unique signature of a French-style artistic ideal in a ‘silent revolution’.

French Idea[L] runs at Valletta Contemporary, East Street, until Friday. The gallery is closed today but will open tomorrow until Friday from 11.30am to 7pm.

www.vallettacontemporary.com

Denis Pondruel