May 15 - June 2
Saint-Cirq-Lapopie
The inaugural act in May revolved around the artists’ abode of the Catalan painter Pierre Daura ( 1896-1976) , who settled in Saint-Cirq-Lapopie in 1929. Formerly a haven of peace for him and his family, the house was donated by Martha Daura, his daughter, to the Occitanie Region. Today, the house serves as an artists residency as part of the programming of Maison des arts Georges et Claude Pompidou, a nationally recognised contemporary art center located in Cajarc and Saint-Cirq-Lapopie. Renowned for his mastery of landscape painting, Pierre Daura was also a central figure in the Cercle et Carré movement, alongside Michel Seuphor and Torres Garcia, advocating for geometric construction and abstraction in opposition to surrealism. This conceptual foundations of the movement also form a subtle baseline throughout the Radicale1924 exhibition at Maisons Daura.
ARTISTS : Hans Demeulenaere - Samyra Moumouh- Stéphanie Lagarde - Idris Sevenans Jolijn Baeckelandt - Ria Pacquée
Simon Masschelein - Pieter van der Schaaf - Nienke Baeckelandt - Yi Zhang Simona Mihaela Stoia
‘A Good Circle Makes A Good Square’’ 2024 Samyra Moumouh & Hans Demeuelenaere ©ReganElena
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“… ‘Cercle et Carré, the movement of abstract artists to which Daura was associated and which was a counterweight for surrealism. That was an interesting link to us and we decided to continue on this path, rather than working around Breton or surrealism…” excerpt from interview with Tamara Beheydt and the artists , March 2024
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Reflections on ‘A Good Circle Makes A Good Square’ 2024
Hans Demeulenaere/Samyra Moumouh
April 15, 2024“A good circle makes a good square.”
“A good square makes a good circle.”
“A good circle is a good square.”
"A good square is a good circle.”
“A good form is a good form.”
“A good form is a good circle.”
“The anti of the anti-form is a good square and that makes a good circle.”
“The anti anti-form is a good form.”
Dudd, Plato, Morris.
Sitting at the kitchen table this April in the Maisons Daura, I observed the (albeit) convoluted conversation between D. and M. that resulted in the deceivingly simple title (or, rather, statement) : ’A Good Circle Makes a Good Square’ 2024. Although not all quotes are verbatim, I have tried to do justice to their deliberations.Later on that same day at an entirely different table, D earnestly shared a photograph he had imagined of their work with me. “We could be giants”, moulding and manoeuvring a tiny city scape below. “Claiming the space”, picking up a fire station here, deposing a post office there […], mammoth and gentle in their mouvements. Petrified by a mechanical device, only their hands visible. Or, perhaps, their touch is that of a farmers. They stoop to harvest the bounty of seeds sewn long ago. There, now ! The shutter sounds again. Hinged at the waist, two marionette dolls hang, arms outstretched. A single strand holds them aloft ; they wait to finish an endless dance that will never begin.
D: “It is interesting for me, who defines myself as an artist to work with someone who does not. It opens up my practice and gives both of us a sense of freedom.”
Artist and architect, architect and giant, giant and farmer, farmer and puppet, puppet and circle, ‘Cercle et Carré’.
R
‘The silent apparition of a brute confusion’ 2022 Simona Mihaela Stoia & Thomas Delamarre ©FinnFons
For the inaugural exhibition of Radicale 1924 at Maisons Daura, Simona Mihaela Stoia presents 'The Silent Apparition of a Brute Confusion,' a large landscape painting created in 2022. Stoia's artistic work draws inspiration from a diverse array of impressions gleaned from her surroundings.
During her residency in May 2024, a new work will be produced in Saint-Cirq-Lapopie at Maisons Daura, inspired by the picturesque surroundings of the Lot region. Amidst the layered transparency and accumulation of paint in her works, Stoia's artistic vision continues to defy easy interpretation, rooted in the rich tapestry of her environment.
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‘There are things you cannot grasp with language and other communication. I like to leave room for questions. Like a good poem: you understand it at the age you read it, but later you understand it differently. It grows on you.’
Excerpt from the interview with Tamara Beheydt and the artist. -
‘Automatic’ Reflections on ‘Comfort II’ (2023)
Simona Mihaela StoiaMarch 12, 2024
‘Comfort II’ (2023) cannot be photographed. You cannot capture it, but instead must allow yourself to become enveloped within its lustrous folds, led astray. The emotion, perhaps, that S. seeks is not perfection, but melancholy (“ça-a-été” so famously spoken of by Barthes), the very noeme of photography itself. In S.’s own words, “‘ Comfort II’ […] was based on light. […] I made it back in Belgium so I couldn’t see the light as it was in Saint-Cirq-Lapopie. I thought it was best to let the subconscious speak, the feeling I had in my body when I experienced it, which is even better than memory.”
When not the memory, but the feeling within our bodies begins to decompose, what can be done to stop such dissolution ? Painting as a medium allows one to “see”. Is not writing disposed with the same power ? Writing, that allows for the transmutation of the ever evasive topoi of photography into textual constructs. Writing, resulting from a lacune; the images it conjures ultimately forge a perforating, fictional sensibility. And yet, unbeknownst to me, the nimble fingers of time have already begun their task of unraveling. The apt words evade me.
As I reflect upon Comfort II in particular, I am left with other questions. What is it to be haunted ? To host an almost palpable (visceral ?) unrest that can only be realized by way of kinetic devices ?
S. coaxes one not to attempt to construct a perfect copy - as a photograph often attempts to be- but to fantasise about such a feeling, to dream of it, to bathe in the light that is “glowing and disappearing and coming back again.” Perhaps Saint-Cirq is such a place where one goes to lose themselves, on the heels of that ever evanescent light: a sort of illusory enchantment. I tempt to imagine it now, to feel it.
(You may) consider this a long winded answer as to why there will be no picture of ‘Comfort II’ included in the present archive.
R
‘Untitled’ 2024 Pieter Van der Schaaf ©Pieter Van der Schaaf
For his participation in the Radicale1924 program Pieter van der Schaaf creates ephemeral works through collaborations with local associations and inhabitants. Echoing the 2021 edition, Pieter works again this year with the pictures of the inhabitant-cats of Saint Cirq Lapopie, silkscreened on pizza boxes at the nearby printshop Imprimerie Trace. The work will later unfold throughout several stages revolving around a collective meal and its very remnants in September 2024 in Maison André Breton/Emile Joseph Rignault.
Sylvia ajouta: "Je ne sais pas...évidemment ce qui peut sauver tout ça c'est l'amour." 2024 ©Pieter Van der Schaaf
Sylvia ajouta: "Je ne sais pas...évidemment ce qui peut sauver tout ça c'est l'amour." (2024)
The work of Stéphanie Lagarde created for the 2024 edition is based on a quote from Sylvia Zade-Routier, taken from a discussion in 2022.
Both a private home and a place for research and artistic creation, Sylvia's house is the heart of the Radicale1924 project, based on the practice of hospitality. This sentence resonates like an echo of the Radicale1924 project, and more broadly, as a societal project. This sentence was the subject of a video work during the 2022 edition of Radicale1924, a textile work for the 2023 edition, and a long hand-embroidered banner, displayed in progress in May 2024 at the Daura Houses, and completed in September 2024 at the André Breton House in Saint-Cirq Lapopie
‘The weight of a stone’ 2022 Yi Zhang ©FinnFons
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2024
In continuation of her installation at Saint-Cirq-Lapopie in 2023, Yi Zhang examines the commodification of hair and the contrasts between something so personal and private, and its production process, for example in a Chinese factory where she herself worked for several months on her artwork. In her new works, she focuses on the gestures made by factory workers while creating wigs, and on hair as a private, intimate space and sphere.
‘The Circle of Marokko’ (2004) courtesy of the artist ©FinnFons
Ria Pacquée stands at the forefront of the inaugural wave of artists who delved into the realm of performance art in Belgium during the latter half of the 1970s. In Antwerp, she was part of a pioneering group of artists who explored this innovative art form, influenced by movements emanating from New York and Germany.
From the early 1980s onwards, Pacquée recurrently embodied two distinct characters in her street performances: Madame (1982-1991) and IT (1991-1995).
Fos Radicale 1924 group exhibition at Maisons Daura, Pacquée spotlights primarily in the role of observer. Since the early 1990s, she has meticulously documented her surroundings, capturing tens of thousands of images depicting people and objects encountered during her extensive walks in cities, streets, squares, and fields—not only in Antwerp but also in locales such as Athens, Bangkok, Kathmandu, New York, and Paris, among others. Pacquée organizes these photographs and slides into thematic series, often transforming them into videos or digitally enhancing them. Guided by her unique perception of colors, shapes, clothing, and lighting, which prompt her to create cohesive visual narratives. These series evoke a myriad of emotions, ranging from whimsical to poignant, and offer profound insights into human coexistence and the shaping of our shared world—transcending cultural boundaries.
‘The Floating Archive’ 2022 ©FinnFons
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2022
All the artists included in the first chapter of Radicale1924’s final celebration have been involved recurrently throughout the program between 2021-2024. They therefore have links with the other artist houses in the village, Maison Routier and Maison Breton. Idris Sevenans, for example, participated in the very first artistic manifestations of the project, with his Tour De Zwanze, an imaginary bike tour between Museum René Magritte in Brussels (Belgium) and Maison André Breton, Saint-Cirq-Lapopie. At Maisons Daura, he will show his Floating Archive, a work that sparks questions about the balance between preserving art history through archival efforts and ensuring the direct experience and accessibility of the artworks themselves.
‘Housewifery’ +‘Recup’ + ‘Metamorphosis’ 2023, Jolijn Baeckelandt ©FinnFons
Baeckelandt’s work tries to point out the duality between the expected and the unexpected, chaos and order, The complex relations and the movement between these. The constant ping pong. There’s a personal desire to search for chaos, a need to explore the unknown when life becomes too much of a pattern. When the chaos is too present, we go back to the safety of our old, known and repeating, structural habits.
The production process of the kitchen towels consists out of repeating mechanical movements (from tread to towel, one towel after another; mass-production). As so does the graphic design of the kitchen towel, a repeating pattern of lines and squares within a plane. This in relation to the function of this object, its repetitive nature relates to the daily repetition.
‘No title’ 2023 ©FinnFons
Simon Masschelein revisits his inaugural sculpture created during a Radicale 1924 residency in 2021, utilizing materials found at the restoration site of Maison André Breton. For the May exhibition, Simon reimagines his artwork specifically for this group exhibition in the Maisons Daura.
‘Tasteless’ ( still from video) 2023 , Nienke Baeckelandt ©FinnFons
Nienke Baekelandt presents a video titled "Tasteless III" (2024) building upon the installation she showcased last year during the 'Parade, the public event' on the terrace of Maisons Routier in Saint-Cirq-Lapopie.