As if deposited by the foam of a gigantic wave that has submerged the museum, Racca Vammerisse’s creatures form a precious and disquieting biotope. Immersed in the delicate sounds composed by Fred Leonard, they oscillate between familiar forms and fantastic chimeras. The mischievous dialogue created by their interaction with works from the collection reveals the details as well as the interpretations of ancient paintings and sculptures.
This trompe-l’œil between the unchanging and the putrescent also reflects the age-old anxiety of civilizations at the idea of witnessing their own collapse, a concern that parallels that of individual survival in the grip of terrible inner demons. The artist’s “visceral hand”, whose gesture is ordered by impulse, sublimates the hopes, doubts, torments and violence of the living world through the virtuoso creation of monumental, sensual pieces.
Organicity, proliferation and exuberance replay the eclectic decor of the 19th-century Kotschoubey-Thomson palace – now home to the Musée des Beaux-Arts – fusing decorative references from all previous eras. But haven’t splendor and luxuriance always been the illusion of an artificial paradise on earth, whose decay is inexorable? All that glitters is not gold. But you’ll be able to misinterpret it for the duration of this incandescent encounter with the relics of foam.
