Marseille révélée par l’art contemporain
Marc Rosmini
A focus on certain creative tendencies in Marseille: this is what this book offers by happily combining cuisine (with creations by Gérald Passedat, at the Petit Nice, or by Lionel Lévy, one of the founders of the Génération C association), football and visual arts. What binds them together is a certain aptitude to recycle, to accommodate and aesthetize leftovers, to inject fun into daily life. This capacity to overcome obstacles, to assemble, to go around, the « cabanon» spirit -for the typical huts on the coast- as defined by one of the artists active on site, Guy André Lagesse, is often expressed by interventions in the fallows or the more "sensitive" districts. These interventions are worthy but not sure to go on to posterity: we can see it for example in the installation at the Cité des Cèdres by Richard Baquié, one of the fleeting stars of art in Marseille (died at age 40 in 1995), totally absorbed by the cement and the tags. The author skips easily from one theme to another, strenghthening his speech with the results of the local football team, drawing a touching portrait of a committed creation we can currently see in the collective exhibition «Marseille artistes associés», presented in various museums in the city.
• Marseille révélée par l’art contemporain by Marc Rosmini, Jeanne Laffitte publishers, 2007, 176 p., 24,50 €, ISBN : 978-2-86276-453-5
Review published in the newsletter #74 - from 24 January 2008 to 30 January 2008
