Description
The gallery presents “Beaux Restes,” an exhibition assembled from fragments of previous exhibitions that have been revived, reconfigured, and brought into dialogue with one another:
Roman Cieslewicz (1930–1996) is an absolutely central figure in the history of 20th-century European graphic design. Trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, he first established himself as one of the leading figures of the Polish school of poster design. His work is characterized by an obsessive practice of photomontage and the appropriation of images: he pre-processes, fragments, repeats, enlarges, and alters photographs and visual icons to produce images of unsettling power, both political and dreamlike.
To mark the 30th anniversary of the magazine *Graphisme en France*, the National Center for Visual Arts and the International City of the French Language launched a unique commission: Messages/Images, Graphic Design of General Interest? a series of sixteen original posters created by graphic designers or collectives selected to explore the relationship between words and images, offering a sensitive perspective on major contemporary issues: inclusion, hospitality, democracy, linguistic diversity, commitment, and hope.
Félicité Landrivon, who for a long time wished to remain anonymous by signing her work with the pseudonym “Brigade Cynophile” (as a joke, and because she loves dogs), beganher career as a self-taught graphic artist working for the alternative rock scene in Lyon. Her work is based on the principle of juxtaposing iconographies and creating eclectic assemblages of images and typefaces gleaned from the fringes of visual culture.
La Gauchère is a long-term research and creative project led by graphic designer Marion Cachon. Unfolding through lectures, exhibitions, and a publication, it seeks to examine a structural blind spot in design: the place accorded to left-handed people in the understanding of everyday life. Since the majority of objects, graphic systems, and practices are designed for right-handed people, left-handedness appears as a flaw, an anomaly to be corrected. The project seizes upon this imbalance to reveal its critical and creative potential, championing clumsiness, error, and detours as productive forces.
Postfirebooks is a publishing house whose approach is inextricably linked to the question of the book’s presence in the exhibition space. Its modular display units, designed to accommodate its entire catalog, are not merely display fixtures: they constitute a fully-fledged exhibition system, designed to foster closeness between the publications and their audience, to encourage handling, reading, and leafing through the pages—breaking with the usual conventions in which publications are placed at a distance from the viewer.
Practical Information:
Admission: Free
Hours: June 24–August 29
Open Wednesday through Friday from 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. and Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Location: Place de la Comédie, Opéra, entrance on the right side of the plaza, 34000 Montpellier
Access: Tram Lines 1 and 2, Gare Saint Roch stop
