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They include "Keffieh", a piece inspired by the Arab
headscarf, embroidered with hair and mesh motifs, and
"Present Tense", an installation of pearls embedded in
blocks of Nablus soap, delineating the Oslo peace
agreements between Israel and Palestine. A friend of the
artist attended the opening: Leila Shahid, General
Delegate for the Palestinian Authority with the European
Union. She told us: "Contemporary art, at the heart
of current debate, needs no passport. It is a medium for
disseminating Palestinian culture. I shall be interested to
see what effect an event like this produces." At Aix,
works are exhibited outside, with "L’art à l’endroit" (Art
Hits the Spot): a trial with three key stages. Yahoi
Kusama's crazy polka dots climb the trees of the Cours
Mirabeau; Rachel Feinstein's dismantled barouche,
"Puritan’s Delight", runs aground at the Rotonde
fountain. All this has not been achieved without conflict
in this middle-class city with its hundred and fifty listed
monuments. "An ecological collective tried to remove
© Lisa Ricciotti
Kalama's canvas sheets the very night they were
installed. They said the staples were harming the trees.
And I won't even start on about the other demonstrators,"
explained Thierry Roche, deputy director of MP
2013 at Aix. Meanwhile, at the Musée Granet, fourteen
artists from southern France have been invited to
produce works there, freely creating links between
them, like a kind of Surrealist cadavre exquis. They
include a piece by Cypriot artist Lia Laphiti, "Love
Dinner": a gustatory, amorous fable featuring a table of
women. As all the players acknowledge, this Dantean
event will not solve any of Marseille's basic problems. It's
a sizeable challenge: "Apart from the cultural aspect,
there is an image to refurbish, without affecting the
rebellious side so integral to the city's identity. There is
also an economic challenge, with jobs into the bargain
and ten million tourists expected in 2013, and lastly, the
issue of coordinating territories for more effective
sharing," says MP 2013 General Manager Jean-François
Chougnet. Marseille, that great, proud metropolis of the
people, needs to change its mentalities and those
of others... and that's just what's happening: "In this land
of settlement created layer by layer with foreign
populations, all this has the merit of having developed in
a totally natural way," says its Mayor, Jean-Claude
Gaudin. To be continued! Virginie Chuimer-Layen
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For all information on Marseille-Provence 2013, European
Capital of Culture: Pavillon M, Place Villeneuve-Bargemon,
Marseille, 2nd arrondissement www.pavillon-m.com and
www.mp2013.fr
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EVENT THE MAGAZINE
N° 23 I GAZETTE DROUOT INTERNATIONAL
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