Despite November, despite the rain, despite the gray surroundings, enchantment is sometimes just around the corner. And in this case, he has been for several days behind the walls of the Olivier-Debré Contemporary Creation Center (CCCOD) in Tours, which is hosting the exhibition Taken by enchantment. A collective exhibition, mounted, as its name indicates, with numerous Italian artists and whose title borrowed from a sonnet by Dante, means “surprised by enchantment”.
The little happy things in life…
The two curators of the exhibition, Isabelle Reiher, director of the CCCOD and her friend the Venetian Chiara Bertola, wanted to shake up the fashionable codes by expressing the notion of enchantment, when contemporary art museums question us all the time. exhibitions on the ills of the world, war, the environment, political and economic crises, racism… And when enchantment arrives like that at the bend of a large staircase, by surprise, light, first of all, the effect is all the more intense.
The visitor is placed at the center of a scenic landscape where the works are arranged.
© Photo NR, Hugues Le Guellec
This collective exhibition, which is in the large white gallery until next spring, can be visited in a circular manner; we move from one format to another, from a canvas to a plant installation, from a video to light effects. The works look at each other and our gaze meets them with as much ease as astonishment. These are the surprising and happy little things in life that are offered to the visitor.
“Re-enchant the world”
Isabelle Reiher and Chiara Bertola brought together a family of Italian artists, who left their studios in Venice, Milan, Florence and Bari to exhibit in Tours. Other artists from Lebanon, London and the United States complete the exhibition. “We need to re-enchant the world, that’s also what artists do, observe Chiara Bertola. They transform reality without losing the notion of the gravity of life. Enchantment is something that transports us to a dream dimension, to an elsewhere that gives the possibility of seeing things differently. »
Isabelle Reiher sees the immaculate space of the large white gallery as the ideal place to host this exhibition. : « We wanted to take advantage of this space to offer visitors a journey, a journey through emotions, where the works tell us what they have to say. »
Collective exhibition “Presi per incantamento”, at CCCOD, from November 15, 2024 to May 4, 2025; open Wednesday to Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday until 7 p.m. Prices: €8.50; €5.50, free under 18s. Olivier-Debré Center for Contemporary Creation, Jardin François-1er, in Tours. Such. 02.47.66.50.00. Website: cccod.fr
