Marie-Jo Lafontaine's Dual Exhibitions in Angers Challenge Perception

Marie-Jo Lafontaine, recent winner of the Shanghai Fashion & Culture Media Award 2007, presents two concurrent exhibitions at Angers' major museums. At Musée Jean Lurçat, dedicated to tapestry, she displays Monochrome noir 1 & 2 (1978–1979), early works that confront the stereotype of the female weaver by giving spatial dimension to the monochrome and subverting wool weaving clichés. A key installation features ten identical vertical oil-on-wood panels per wall, referencing landscape painting. Nordzee (Mer du Nord) uses two blue tones to divide the space and suggest a horizon line, evoking Flemish painting; its strength lies in layered oil and panel joints, where light enhances softness while fragmentation creates unease. At Musée des beaux-arts, a closed room houses the audiovisual installation The World starts every minute! (Le Rire du monde): seven large colored cones and six speakers emit sounds—initially murmurs and whispers, then a child's voice, escalating into unbearable laughter. Surrounding portraits of naked children and adolescents, framed at torso height, stare at viewers, some laughing, others intensely, inducing discomfort. The works explore identity, featuring children from working-class backgrounds, with nudity transcending social determinism. Lafontaine's art lures viewers into contemplation before unsettling them, using ambiguity as a key strategy.