Manger les images

Curated by Jérémie Koering, professor at the University of Fribourg (lead curator), and Raphaël Bories, curator in charge of the Beliefs and Religions department at Mucem (associate curator). Eating an image—what a strange idea! And yet we have never stopped feasting on them, from the most distant antiquity to the present day, particularly in Europe and the Mediterranean. So how can such an attitude toward them be explained? Why incorporate an image, take it into oneself, risking destroying it, rather than calmly observing it from a distance? What functions can be attributed to these gestures, to this highly particular experience of images? What does such behavior reveal about ourselves and our societies? Eating a depicted object allows us to house within ourselves something that can heal, protect and transform us, but also offer us the means to learn, resist, play, dream and participate in the life of dedicated communities. This exhibition will juxtapose the practice with the diversity of the imaginaries—religious, philosophical, literary, artistic and political—that sustain it, in a journey ranging from the metaphorical incorporation to the actual ingestion of images. Artists expected to participate: Nicolas Boulard, Bernardino Campi, Alonso Cano, David Cronenberg, Honoré Daumier, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Michel Journiac, Dennis Oppenheim, Meret Oppenheim, Brett Ratner…