Temple of Love — Atopos, MAC VAL, 2022

The artist Gaëlle Choisne introduces the living into the rooms of the museum: she welcomes the visitors’ bodies as the very subject of the project and implements the principle of hospitality so precious to the MAC VAL, in order to consider and care for them. Invited to invest the spaces of the museum, Gaëlle Choisne proposes a total project that takes place in her exploration of Roland Barthes’ Fragments d’un discours amoureux, entitled « Temple of Love », a realization implemented for several years in different places as it was for example the case at Bétonsalon, in 2018.

This new occurrence at the MAC VAL, Atopos, is declined in the heart of the exhibition space of the collection « Bare Hands », in front of other works. Through furniture and sculptural devices it proposes forms of reception of the public, inviting them to participate and listen to artistic interventions programmed by the artist: philosopher, artist, musician, anthropologist, masseur… about twenty interventions will take place in these installations that can be activated during one year.

Gaëlle Choisne accompanies the works in the collection with living things, with what is the very essence of humanity: philosophy, thought, contact, the thirst to become, germination, life.
Here, once again, his project is placed under the sign of love and relationships with others, an experience to live love as a political, social and solidarity response.
An ecosystem at the service of the living.

Love, a word that makes us blush. So we translate it into ‘Wicked!’ or into actions.
At the MAC VAL, in Vitry-sur-Seine, I invite all visitors to be careful with this word so delicate that we vulgarise it or do not speak it. Here, it is yours and for you, for all of you, but especially for the mino-rities, for those left behind, for the abandoned, for the sidelined, for the originals. It accompanies your steps and everything you see from me is made with it. I am trying to tell you that you are unique, original and never interchangeable, you are singular creatures to be loved and I invite you to start with yourself. Take this chance to settle down, to feel through the breath of your lives, through the struggles but also through the laughter, through a sigh, a soothing. I offer you spaces in the museum, a lull in a benevolent place, to feel good, to do sport, to find yourself. The museum is indeed a place that is made for this, not only for connoisseurs or professionals, but for all those who want to expe-rience, to feel.Ode to love for all! (Gaëlle Choisne)

Guests
— Les Apprenant*e*s de l’école des actes
— Marie-Carmel Brouard
— Contemporaines
— Gabriel Fontana
— Caroline Honorien
— Nge Lay et Aung Ko
— Roxanne Maillet et Célia Gaultier
— Gloria Maso
— Pascale Obolo et Afrikadaa
— Anouchka Oler Nussbaum
— Elisabetta Potasso
— Emmanuelle Soum