Les cœurs brisé·es ont la couleur des fleurs qu’on ne cueille pas

Lucile Boutin, Lisa Bravi, Elijah Burgher, Marielle Chabal, Sholem Krishtalka, Amine Merhoum, Willie Morlon & Audrey Jonchères, Giancarlo Pirelli, Pam Puck, Antonin Sambussy, Mathieu Santori, Anastasia Simonin & Kazuo Yagi Marsden to explore, through the form of the diptych, the manifestations of love, separation, and what remains after a breakup.

This group exhibition reveals some of the mysterious ways in which two presences can respond to and oppose one another, move apart, and sometimes continue to exist through one another, even when they are separated. “Les cœurs brisé·es ont la couleur des fleurs qu’on ne cueille pas” considers the diptych as a metaphor for romantic relationships. Dualistic constructions based on closeness and distance, but also on the space separating two elements. What connects them becomes just as important as what distinguishes them. Through a surprising variety of visual languages and materials, the twelve diptychs highlight the artists’ ability to appropriate, reinterpret, and reinvent the diptych, moving beyond its traditional use throughout the history of art.

“Some loves never really end. They just change places. They move into gestures we hold back, sentences we don’t send, habits that stay longer than expected, images we still look at even as they have already begun to drift away. Love is not a subject here. It is an active residue.” — David Pons

For this exhibition, MadmaX is publishing a catalogue featuring all the works on display, as well as short texts by invited writers: Marie Maertens, journalist, curator, and art critic; Chirine Hammouch, author and art critic; Jonathan Frydman, curator; Julien Bouharis, curator and art dealer; and Alexia Abed, art critic and art historian.