A visit to the MacVal
Who’s welcomed in the museum? Who is art representing? Led by instructor Emmanuel Cohen, students visited the MacVal, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Vitry, a suburb of Paris. In a city marked by waves of immigration during the 20th century, the exhibition Persona Grata invites the viewers to a reflection on hospitality. If hospitality has been a value revered in Ancient Greece, current evolutions of domestic and international policies have altered the universality of its message. As a consequence, people displaced are often seen as “persona non grata” – rejected individuals.
Facing current phenomena and life situations that are the cause of people’s displacement, contemporary artists such as Mona Hatoum, Mircea Cantor, or Parsons Paris faculty member Laëtitia Badaut Haussmann explore in visual, material and sensitive ways what is hospitality, or its absence thereof. During this visit, students are invited to experience how some artworks engage with today’s pressing matters and open new spaces for discussion and, maybe, action.
Through the works of these international contemporary artists, questions of migrations, inertia and movement, change of identity, and the inherent violence associated with the current migration crisis in Europe are treated.
Mona Hatoum, Suspendu, 2009-2010
Mircea Cantor, Rainbow, 2011
Laëtitia Badaut-Haussmann, Daybed N°3, 2006
François Paire, Sliding Idol, 2006