PANORAMA Eva Jospin | Fondation Thalie

The Fondation Thalie presents French artist Eva Jospin’s work in Brussels (from 15 April-23 September, 2023) for the first time. The exhibition “Panorama” invites viewers to take a poetic stroll through the artist’s sculptural work: a call to daydream with philosophic accents of Jean-Jacques Rousseau between fragments of landscapes and fantastical architectural elements. In the artist’s adept hands, works of man and nature come together, like the Balcony from which the carefully crafted ironworks are adorned with finely cut lianas to the Grotto of cardboard that jointly summons the imaginary of the architectural folie and 18th-century landscaped gardens.

Inspired by the monumental fountains of ancient Rome, which, during the Renaissance, became fashionable ornaments in parks and gardens, the rock garden theater of Nymphée, over three meters long, stands majestically at the heart of the exhibition, revealing the artist’s full mastery. The gaze wanders across the landscape strata at reduced scale, to which the sculpted cardboard — her favourite material — features a rocky appearance.

Conducive to psychological escapism and wandering imagination, the forests that made Eva Jospin so celebrated also hold an important place in the visitor’s journey, expressed in multiple mediums and formats. Woven with silk threads, as with the woodland embroideries that embellish the library sector, they bear witness to the artist’s talent as a colourist. Chiseled in bas-relief in the cardboard, they imbue the sculpture with meticulousness and attention to detail that is usually reserved to drawing, which in fact serves as the matrix for all of Eva Jospin’s plastic research.

While this era struggles with unprecedented crisis in the living world, these works absent of humans (yet full of stories) reveal nature in different depictions, inspiring us to feel re-enchanted with our relationship to the world. Silent and sensitive, these composite décors — plants, minerals and built structures coming together — inviteviewers to meditate, to dream, and to take the time for mindful contemplation.

Curator: Nathalie Guiot

Eva Jospin (born in 1975 in Paris) is a graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. For fifteen years, she has been composing scaleable architectural forest landscapes. Winner of the Prix de l’Académie des Beaux-Arts in 2015 and resident of the Villa Medici in Rome in 2017, she has had numerous international exhibitions, notably at the Palais of Tokyo (Inside, 2014), at the Palazzo Dei Diamanti in Ferrara (2018), at the Hayward Gallery (2020) and most recently at the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature in Paris (Galleria, 2021). The artist has also unveiled several monumental and immersive installations as part of specific commissions: in the center of the Cour carrée of the Louvre (Panorama, 2016), at the Abbaye de Montmajour (Cénotaphe, 2020), and she also created permanently-installed works such as Folie at the Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire (2015), La Traversée at Beaupassage in Paris (2018) and Le Passage in Nantes (2019). Eva Jospin will be exhibiting in the chapel of the Palais des Papes in Avignon this summer in a monographic exhibition entitled “Palazzo” as well as at the Collection Lambert where she will present a selection of works. She is also the guest artist of the Carte Blanche programme of the Maison Ruinart.

Eva Jospin is represented by Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve in Paris.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

Exhibition from 15 April to 23 September 2023
From Wednesday to Saturday from 12pm to 6pm.
Entrance 5€ / Free* (on presentation of suitable evidence)
*Students, teachers, -26, job seekers, SMART members

Commented tour every Wednesday and Saturday at 3 pm. Free entrance every first Saturday of the month.

With the support of the French Embassy in Belgium and the French Institute, as part of Extra 2023, a programme to support French contemporary creation. In partnership with Art Brussels and Maison Ruinart.