Ceysson & Bénétière

Some works by French artist Tania Mouraud (b. 1942) carry the legacy of the Holocaust: after her father, a member of the resistance movement, was shot dead by the Nazis at Vercors, she took it upon herself to always be on the side of the oppressed and, more generally, of women. As a worldly, socially conscious individual, Mouraud uses her art to explore—at the intersection of cultures—the nature of life, with all its contradictions and upheavals. Her work is a melting pot of influences from music (John Zorn, the Japanese noise scene, the Klezmer tradition, Luigi Russolo’s The Art of Noises) and the choreography of Indian martial arts, with references to art history (from Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook to the Russian avant-garde) and historical resistance figures (such as Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr.). 

The exhibition covers Mouraud’s works from the 1970s and 1980s, with a particular focus on her “meditation rooms”: psychosensory spaces, with or without sound, that the artist suggested including in all newly built homes. These spaces—as places to refocus and just be—were conceived as part prayer room (“In India, everyone has a prayer room,” says Mouraud) and part Virginia Woolf’s Room of One’s Own…

Exhibition curated by Sophie Costes

With the support of Ceysson & Bénétière gallery