LE MASQUE DE CAMILLE

SEPTEMBER 29 2023 TO JANUARY 14 2024

In the portraits of Camille Claudel from 1884, La tête de Camille coiffée d'un bonnet (clay) and Le masque de Camille (plaster cast), Rodin deliberately left traces of the casting or of the residue of his fingers in the material. In so doing, Rodin reclaims the time spent in the studio, the work processes and the making of sculpture. These faces are both representations of the woman he loved and self-portraits of Rodin the lover. Camille Claudel's mask is Rodin himself. The artist's body stands between the model and his representation. Rodin was laying the foundations for future artistic movements, in which the body as maker, the author, would emancipate itself from questions of representation.

The exhibition Le masque de Camille looks at this heritage: of bodies, gestures, actions and spaces; of three highly singular approaches - Claude Cattelain, Camille Dufour and Lucie Lanzini - in which the body poetically dictates the scale of the act, links with space and shapes the works. In turn, these works will become sources of experimentation for those who try them out. In these experiences, the retina and the body redistribute their roles.