Rien à voir

Rien à Voir

At the heart of the artistic itinerary, an exhibition is proposed by the curator Fabrice Bousteau, through the presentation of fifteen photographs/reproductions of historical and contemporary works that invite visitors to enter the magical world of deceptive appearances! Fifteen advertising panels are diverted from their original function: installed on the esplanade of La Défense, they form a playful and joyful mise en abyme of the exhibition, made of changing perspectives.

In the legend, the story of the trompe-l'oeil begins with the bunch of grapes painted by Zeuxis so realistically that birds come to peck it. Throughout the history of art, artists have always been fascinated by the play of perspectives, optical phenomena, illusions, the ambiguity of double images... curious to explore the limits of art and to blur the viewer's reading tracks.

From the domes of palaces open to the sky, painted in the Renaissance with unquestionable virtuosity, to the anamorphoses of Felice Varini, via the art of trompe-l'oeil de chevalet which appeared in the 15th and 16th centuries or surrealism in the 20th century, artists play with the senses and the perception of the viewer.

Paul Rousteau's photographic work is also presented on these billboards. On one side, René Magritte's reproductions rub shoulders with the stretched, fragmented, coloured landscapes of the Paris La Défense and La Seine Musicale sites, specially photographed by Paul Rousteau, creating a lark mirror game. A surprising exhibition if you want to look at it twice rather than once...