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Exhibition from July 2, 2021 to April 3, 2022
Exhibition curator: Sam Stourdzé
Scenography: Cookies (Alice Grégoire and Clément Périssé, Villa Medici fellows 2020-2021).
The exhibition brings together for the first time British photographer Martin Parr and the two creators of TOILETPAPER magazine, Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari, for a hypnotic itinerary through a visual repertoire bursting with color.
The exhibition takes the form of an installation of over forty photographs, occupying part of the Renaissance gardens of the Villa Medici and offering a space for independent wandering, according to a layout designed by Alice Grégoire and Clément Périssé, architects and 2020-2021 residents of the Académie de France in Rome.
The exhibition takes as its starting point the collaboration between Martin Parr, Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari around the book ToiletMartin PaperParr , published in 2020 by Damiani, and brings together side by side the most emblematic images from the prolific archives of these three artists. The human body, food and animals are the recurring motifs that punctuate this photographic project, which plays on our contemporary obsession with images.
From small formats to monumental prints, the photographs on display at Villa Medici embrace the landscape in a play of scales that underscores the biting, impertinent spirit of their authors. What better setting than the gardens of a Renaissance palace to renew the exercise in delicious contrasts? Meticulously composed images and scenes captured from everyday life resonate to form a powerful photographic narrative in which vernacular and surrealist fiction (con)fuse.
The artists
Martin Parr is one of the most renowned documentary photographers of his generation. Author of more than 120 books and editor of 30 books, he has established a strong photographic legacy. In 1994, he became a full member of the Magnum Photos agency, and between 2013 and 2017 he served as its president. In autumn 2017, the Martin Parr Foundation opened in Bristol. Parr’s work can be found in the collections of many of the world’s leading museums, including the Tate, Centre Pompidou and MoMA in New York.
Maurizio Cattelan has exhibited his work at leading international institutions and has taken part in the Venice Biennale on numerous occasions. He curated the4th Berlin Biennale with Massimiliano Gioni and Ali Subotnick. Cattelan also founded the art magazines Permanent Food and Charley. Since retiring from the art world after the acclaimed 2011 retrospective at New York’s Guggenheim Museum, he has devoted himself to publishing TOILETPAPER magazine. In 2018, Cattelan curated The Artist is Present exhibition at Shanghai’s Yuz Museum.
Pierpaolo Ferrari is a fashion and advertising photographer and creative researcher. In 2007, he began a collaboration with L’Uomo Vogue, which gave him the opportunity to explore the potential of portraiture and radically change its codes. In 2009, he joined forces with Maurizio Cattelan to create TOILETPAPER Magazine.
Sam Stourdzé is a curator specializing in photography and cinema. Since 2020, he has been director of the Villa Médicis; prior to that, he was director of the Musée de l’Élysée in Lausanne and of the Rencontres d’Arles.
Cookies (Alice Grégoire & Clément Périssé) is an architecture and design studio specializing in cultural projects, based in Rotterdam, Rome and Paris. Through the creation of exhibitions, Cookies explores the relationship between art, spatial devices, staging and curating, favoring a critical approach and multidisciplinary collaboration. Alice Grégoire and Clément Périssé are boarders at the Académie de France in Rome (2020-2021).
Acknowledgements : Anna Katarzyna Gutowska
Toiletpaper
TOILETPAPER Magazine was founded in 2010 by Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari, under the artistic direction of Micol Talso, as an image-centric magazine. In recent years, the photos published in the magazine have been associated with a variety of products and media, exploring the multiple possibilities of bringing images to life beyond the pages. TOILETPAPER images have been reviewed by art weeklies and magazines around the world, and have appeared in special issues of magazines such as Vice and Hunger. TOILETPAPER was also exhibited on the High Line billboard in Chelsea, New York, in May 2012. That same year, several images from the first six issues were published, along with selected texts, in an anthology that featured in the Top 10 of the New York Times magazine’s photography book rankings. In June 2013, several images from TOILETPAPER were presented at the Palais de Tokyo and collected in a special edition of Libération.
Works
ToiletMartin PaperParr
Martin Parr, Maurizio Cattelan, Pierpaolo Ferrari
Published by Damiani
28 x 36 cm (hardback)
192 pages, 120 color illustrations
ISBN 978-88-6208-704-9
Published March 2020
60€
ToiletMartin PaperParr is also available in a limited edition!
Edition of 300 numbered copies, each accompanied by a ToiletMartin PaperParr scarf.
ISBN 978-88-6208-713-1
160€
Related news
Exhibition We ❤ Sports. Photographs by Martin Parr
Camera – Centro Italiano per la Fotografia, Turin
October 28, 2021 – February 13, 2022
The exhibition, produced with Magnum Photos and Lavazza, is a veritable anthology of the English master’s work, focusing on a single major theme: sport.
The Académie de France à Rome – Villa Médicis would like to thank its sponsors and partners:
Main sponsor
AMUNDI ASSET MANAGEMENT
Media partner
INSIDE ART, SKY ARTE
With the support of
TECTONA PARIS, CULINARIES, AIR FRANCE
