The Centre for Contemporary Art La Malmaison in Cannes reopens its doors with the exhibition Luxe, Calme et Volupté, on view from January 31 to April 20.
Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, journeys to the South of France became a foundational ritual—an essential stage in the artistic path of many painters. From Cézanne to Monet, Renoir to Bonnard, Matisse to Picasso, a whole chapter of modern art was written in light of the Mediterranean. From Languedoc-Roussillon to the Côte d’Azur, the light and beauty of the southern landscapes offered fertile ground for artistic renewal. Through painting from life that liberated brushstroke and color, modern painters reinvented the landscape and expressed a distinctive sensual presence in the world. Balancing the sensation of reality with an idealized vision of painting, this freedom to create beyond the academic tradition resonated with a liberated sense of the body—fulfilled and in harmony with nature. For modern artists, the journey south answered both a creative impulse and a hedonistic quest, a search for an elsewhere: that of the Golden Age, a great classical myth they reimagined through the prism of the present and a new pictorial energy.
But what about today? In an age of rampant consumerism and unchecked capitalism—of pollution, the Anthropocene, and countless conflicts? In an era of the virtual and endless digital flows? What remains of that sensual appetite for the real, of the eroticism of painting? Of light, of color, of beauty? What remains of the suspended time of idleness and contemplation? How do these questions raised by modernity continue to resonate in painting today?
Of course, many contemporary painters have felt the call of the South or have situated their work in continuity with these historical figures. Displayed side by side, timeless, the works of yesterday and today enter into dialogue. Themes recur—the Golden Age, the landscape, the interior. These works allow us to feel singular visions of Mediterranean beauty: its myths, its nature, its villas open to the sea or turned toward the land. Between reality and fantasy, between pleasure and unease, the works echo each other—through formal affinities, but also through contrasts, reversals, and dissonances, navigating between permanence and erosion.
Exhibited artists:
Jean Marie Barre, Marion Bataillard, Ronan Barrot, Carole Benzaken, Adrien Belgrand, Vincent Bioulès, Pierre Bonnard, Katia Bourdarel, Marion Charlet, Charles Camoin, Louis Cane, Paul Cézanne, Auguste Chabaud, Mathieu Cherkit, Daniel Clarke, Vicky Colombet, Robert Combas, Camille Corot, André Derain, Camille Descossy, Julien Descossy, François Desnoyer, Raoul Dufy, Léonard Foujita, Jacqueline Gainon, Patrice Giorda, Cristine Guinamand, Yayoi Gunji, Philippe Hortala, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Denis Laget, Max Leenhardt, Thomas Lévy-Lasne, Henri Charles Manguin, Raymond Mason, Henri Matisse, Marie-Claire Mitout, Claude Monet, Frédérique Nalbandian, Axel Pahlavi, Simon Pasieka, Pablo Picasso, Nazanin Pouyandeh, Abel Pradalié, Philippe Pradalié, Laurent Proux, Martial Raysse, Auguste Renoir, Madeleine Roger Lacan, Karine Rougier, Christine Safa, Guillaume Toumanian, Abel Tournissoux, Gérard Traquandi, Félix Vallotton, Thomas Verny.
