The Mediterranean is on display at MO.CO. Panacea in Montpellier

Dernière salle de l’exposition “Être Méditerranée” au MO.CO. – MO.CO./Pauline Rosen-Cros

The Panacée summer exhibition highlights 22 artists who have a link with the Mediterranean. Many works focus on the memory or history of the region as well as know-how using fabrics or embroidery.

The new MO.CO exhibition. Panacea, which began last Friday and ends on September 22, is anchored in our space. Taking the name “Être Méditerranée”, it brings together 22 artists and around forty works whose links with the Mediterranean sphere do not always appear obvious.

Diversity

This is due to the bias of the exhibition curator Rahmouna Boutayeb who imagined the exhibition more by questioning the word “being”. "The Mediterranean is a way of being, assures the commissioner. Living around the Mediterranean basin, drawing inspiration from it, crossing this sea, it's also a question of attitude, a way of being in the world. What drives this exhibition, inviting both artists living on the shores of the Mediterranean and artists who once lived there, is the diversity of approaches, the multiple identities, but also the common points and testimony to the long history of a basin which has seen the birth and destruction of different civilizations.

Three main themes

Many works based on weaving and embroidery.

Three themes emerge and interpenetrate: first of all, history, archaeology, tangible and intangible heritage, then memories and legacies around the stories, and finally, know-how and its transmission. On this last point, many artists use ceramics (Elif Uras), textiles and embroidery. This is the opportunity to see a new direction taken by Montpellier native Sanaa Mejjadi who discovered weaving with her grandmother. Teresa Lanceta creates a tapestry with the motif of the sea and waves. For her part, Zoë Paul designed an eel with pearls similar to pixels. Nour Jaouda arranges fabrics and curtains directly on a canvas while in the corridors, Adrien Vescovi holds up his immense assemblages of fabrics resembling pages.

A work to modulate

Andreas Angelidakis, Post Ruin Bentivoglio, 2021.

Archeology dominates in the work of Andreas Angelidakis who arranged 20 plastic modules imitating pink marble, letting us think that we are treading on the remains of an ancient place. A work that you can sit on and that it is possible to modulate. Elias Kurdy chose to work on the ruin and the fragment by copying existing pieces of sarcophagi and temples. His work is in the last room, the most rich of all. This is where we find most of the figurative works. There is the statue of a strange being shaped by Ali Cherri, the triptych of Aïcha Snoussi who, in a musical atmosphere created paintings with the idol of her grandmother mixed with the ;traits of this one when she was young. Here we touch on stories.

Several hundred deceased characters

Detail of Mladen Miljanović's work, which features more than 250 characters.

In this same register, the most extensive work is undoubtedly that of Mladen Miljanović who is interested in memory. His work in black granite is teeming with characters, most of them from pop culture, who died in 2020 and 2021. A work, like many others, which demands attention.

Until Sunday September 22, Tuesday to Sunday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. MO.CO. Panacea, 14 rue de l’École de Pharmacie, Montpellier. FREE ENTRANCE. I subscribe to read more