Laurent Montaron's 'To Tell a Story' at Monitor Rome Explores Narrative as Chronicle or Invention

Laurent Montaron's solo exhibition 'To Tell a Story' at Monitor gallery in Rome investigates the dual nature of storytelling as both factual chronicle and creative invention. The show takes its title from a 1983 television interview with Susan Sontag, who discussed narrative as a tool for reporting facts and constructing fictions. Montaron presents three series of works: photographs, objects, and sound installations. The photographic series distances itself from religion, referencing the 1968 slogan 'Despite the non-existence of God, nothing is permitted,' and portrays pre-Socratic philosophers Thales, Heraclitus, and Parmenides through images taken at their birthplaces. 'Papiers insolés' features meta-photographs made with 1920s photographic paper, depicting the paper itself. Sound installations—'Voices of the Theatre' (2024), 'Two Sine-Square Audio Generators' (2025), and 'Apple Boxes' (2018)—emit altered frequencies that require interpretation, turning visitors into narrators. Montaron draws parallels to films like Kurosawa's 'Rashōmon' (1950) and Antonioni's 'Blow Up' (1966) to argue that memory is selective and narrative objectivity is a contradiction. The exhibition runs at Monitor Rome, curated by Ludovica Palmieri.