La Vigne Rouge, au Forum du Palais de la Porte Dorée, Paris 2021
L’artiste Latifa Medjdoub, dont le textile est la matière de prédilection, a tissé une vigne rouge inspirée de celle peinte sur la fresque du salon Paul Reynaud, dit salon « Afrique ». Au cours d’une expérience collective, des participants de tous âges sont invités à interagir avec cette œuvre, sous le regard de l’artiste vidéaste Hélène Combal-Weiss.
LATIFA MEDJDOUB (AKA LAFTMONK) HÉLÈNE COMBAL-WEISS Lors de sa découverte du Palais, Latifa Medjdoub a porté son regard sur l’immense vigne grimpante qui parcourt l’Afrique sur la fresque imaginée par Louis Bouquet, dans le salon Paul Reynaud. Elle y voit un symbole fort de vitalité, de ténacité et de possibles qui a inspiré son œuvre La Vigne rouge.
Dans la lignée de ses créations textiles et de sa démarche d’art relationnel, Latifa Medjdoub a tissé une corde rouge vif de 200 mètres de long. Six participants de tous âges, guidés par l’artiste, sont invités à la manipuler. La caméra d’Hélène Combal-Weiss capte les géométries spatiales en tension qui se dessinent et l’énergie qui irrigue l’espace et les corps. Cette expérience collective questionne notre présence et notre responsabilité les uns envers les autres, mais aussi envers l’environnement dans lequel nous évoluons.
À propos des artistes
Crédits
Conception : Latifa Medjdoub
Réalisation vidéo : Hélène Combal-Weiss
Assistante à la réalisation : Louise Gholam
Musique : Roots de Derek Phillips et Haco
Avec la participation d’Agnès Arquez-Roth, Fairouz Bouchet, Stéphanie Chazot, Brandon Masele, Wael Sghaier et Cécile Vermorel https://envers.palais-portedoree.fr/
CTRL+S Laftmonk Solo Exhibition
SCHIEDAM -From Saturday October 24 to December 6, you are most welcome to visit our new solo exhibition CTRL + S during our walk-in afternoon between 2:00 pm and 7:00 pm and meet the artist Laftmonk. The exhibition with recent paintings, textile works and an installation shows the world according to Laftmonk (France / US), visual artist, designer and social art practitioner.
During a walk-in afternoon you can view the exhibition and our permanent collection at a safe distance via one-way traffic while enjoying a snack and a drink. Based on previous experience, we expect to have sufficient capacity available with the current 450 m2 exhibition space to properly manage the walk-in via badges. The exhibition will run until December 6.
In CTRL + S, Laftmonk plays with the different techniques and styles that she has mastered over the years. Complex geometric textile weaving techniques merge with painting, photography and collage, resulting in subdued surrealist psychological portraits with influences from Francis Bacon, among others, but also more colorful abstract images with street art influences, whether or not in combination with intriguing textile sculptures and a central installation, Base for a Red Vine, 2020 accomplished during her time in lockdown.
With all of this she seamlessly builds a synthesis of the ideas and concepts in her oeuvre, which revolve around the new world that is continuously unfolding itself. This world is fragile and disintegrated, in constant transformation, with an urgent need for a new balance, a safe haven. A world seen through the eyes of people or insects with alienated fragments of reality, hidden in veiled layers. Laftmonk's world is populated with displaced people, shifting identities, endangered exotic species. All struggle to find their balance, with each other and with a threatened environment. But it is also a world of beauty in all its layered fragility, precious and full of hope to save and be saved.
Laftmonk was born and raised in France, of Algerian descent and educated in France and the USA. Her work has been exhibited internationally in renowned museums and galleries, including the Museum of Art and Industry André-Diligent in France; Cheongju Art Center, Korea; The Cordova Museum, Massachusetts; Santa Fe Art Institute, New Mexico; Blue Star Contemporary, Texas, The Old Mint, San Francisco CA and ST-ART Strasbourg. Her work can be found internationally in private collections, including in Los Angeles, Washington, New York, San Francisco, London and Paris.
OpenArtExchange is an independent international art gallery, which aims to stimulate and connect promising contemporary visual artists from non-Western countries (especially Africa, South America and Asia) with the Western art and culture world. We do this through our online platform, participation in international art fairs and festivals, collaboration with partners and our international residences, exhibitions and other activities in our local art center in the museum quarter of Schiedam (Rotterdam region).
Regular opening hours:
Wednesday to Saturday: 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM, Sunday: 1:00 PM - 6:00 PM
By appointment: email info@openartexchange.com
OpenArtExchange
Hoogstraat 85
3111 HC Schiedam
www.openartexchange.com
As part of Salam to Syria, the Connect program brings an innovative performance in the field of social action art to Bonn. Artist, sculptor and painter Latifa Medjdoub is curator of the event. Salam to Syria promotes cooperation between artists from Syria and other parts of the world.
CONNECT
Fiber art possesses flexible properties that allows me to reflect upon vital mechanisms produced by nature and therefore is a rich medium to help translate in organic shapes, the possibilities stretched by nature’s structure and logic. In Connect, a social experience and practice speaks for our passage through the filter of art, meditation on societal issues and back to nature. It provides a framework for thinking about our collective creativity and the fundament of life, what links humanity together, it's motives, potentiality and self direction.
I have conceived on a loom a range of ropes or vines as I like to call them for their vital and dynamic reflection on nature. A social practice is engaged to help raise awareness and to sharpen our intuitive communication, opening an inner dialogue to support the world around with a positive vision with new avenues, possibilities.
Installed in a background made of red bricks on the tall walls at the Bonn Evangelische Trinitatiskirchengemeinde , a range of protean textile forms are knotted and woven on stretchers from wooden recycled material with a seamless composition. Often achieved using a single handcrafted string on a loom, the various studies reflect on the multiple levels of interconnectedness of individuals and networks using a system of geometry of interaction.
Two performers, Chrystele Saint Louis Augustin and Sophiatou Kossoko will engage the public with a series of handcrafted ropes installed in the core of the church, tracing together a connective web. The ephemeral installation spanning the space transports participants to an expansive and physically networked setting from which valuable perspective is acquired.
This project encompasses traditional relationship with the public in the context of performance by pushing the mental and physical boundaries, questioning our presence and responsibility to each other, challenging individual perception and improvisation, allowing an immersive space of self and communal reflection as well as a transformative collective experience.
SALAM TO SYRIA
Latifa Medjdoub, Curator and artist
Performers for Connect: Chrystèle Saint Louis Augustin and Sophiatou Kossoko
Music: Ashraf Kateb (Violin) and Iwan Urwalow (Piano & Orgel)
Starring Opera singer Deborah Sassoon
This Salam to Syria fundraiser is run by the Global Health Equity Foundation (GHEF)
in cooperation with the Bonn Institute for Migration Research (BIM) e.V.
The proceeds of the event will be used for a research project on the health equality of refugees. In addition to promoting health education for Arabic-speaking refugees, the project will also provide relevant insights into the assessment of trauma and treatment methods. In line with the philosophy of the Global Health Equity Foundation and BIM e.V., support for equality in health care is seen as the advance of human society.
The Red Vine
INVITATION TO TAKE PART OF THE RED VINE SOCIAL PRACTICE
This social practice is part of a series of inspirational forums that benefit the Health Diplomacy Project for Arabic Speaking Refugees in Germany. Latifa consults with Global Health Equity Foundation (GHEF) to develop the curriculum for innovative solutions to address issues of inclusion, assimilation and integration in Germany.
The Red Vine is a fiber sculpture conceived as a unique segment to stimulate a vital and creative social interactions while exploring notions of space, time, and movement. The participants create together a nucleus that leads to multiple reflections on the connection phenomenon, the creation of a common improvised space to bring harmony. This experience brings a strong sense of belonging and unity while meditating on our interdependent nature.
MetaSpace Studio Stockenstraße 1-5, 53113 Bonn January 26, 18:00-20:00
Hosted by Global Health Equity Foundation: Global Health Equity Foundation advocates on behalf of people who lack access to health education, preventive services and healthcare. See www.ghef.org