Malala Andiralavidrazana, collages in full “Figures” – Libération

The artist, native of Madagascar, explores in an immense and still ongoing work the relations of domination which were exercised in the European colonies. A section of his creation is exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo.

They squeeze and jostle, run, dance, pose solemnly or, mischievously, grimace in the dizzying and fascinating mess of the immense printed collage which is displayed on the curved wall of the large glass roof of the Palais de Tokyo. None of these characters, illustrious or anonymous, occupies the center or the first place. There isn’t one, nor is there really a beginning or an end. The work of Malala Andrialavidrazana, begun in 2015 and exhibited since in bits and pieces (never on this scale), is still in progress. The artist continues to collect old images of all kinds (paintings, postage stamps, bank notes, prints, advertisements, atlases, etc.) where there is a trace, a mark, a trait of social, political, economic or even domination. of gender.

Ambiguous and full of contradictions

Thus summarized, the issue and the object of this truculent fresco with bright colors, but with the slightly faded tone of illustrations in an old school textbook, remains vague. As much as the tumultuous and heterogeneous corpus of Figures. Malala Andrialavidrazana, born in Madagascar in 1971, has lived in France since she was 12 and has worked since the beginning of the 2000s in relative and unfair indifference from the environment (this exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo is her first in a French institution) and from the market . She would have the typical profile of an artist who, with this exhibition, takes revenge on the fate reserved for women, particularly black women, in the art world (and elsewhere)