The multi-talented artist challenges the public on the notions of colonialism, paternalism, and cultural appropriation through multifaceted works. A unique exhibition to discover starting April 29 at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Nice.
On the museum’s first floor, in the contemporary gallery, the exhibition comes to life. The works comprising it take different forms. There are sculptures, photographs, videos, sound recordings, and glass printing. Though multifaceted, all these pieces come together and resonate with each other. Everything has meaning. The artist aims to evoke a common history.
Caroline Trucco planned and assembled this exhibition in less than six months. “Yes, but with banner words” concentrates ten years of work. “This combination of banner words immediately spoke to me. It allows for empowering language as a vector for struggle, and it also refers to poetic prose and the connotation of war,” she confides.
This is the last exhibition in this wing of the museum before it undergoes a makeover, as part of the extension of the Promenade du Paillon. It is open until October 1, 2023, every day except Monday, from 10 AM to 6 PM, starting May 2.
Stories of Wandering and Exile in Poetry
The artist from Nice has developed “an artistic approach that poetically links ethnographic and political issues”. Drawing from her many travels and residencies in West Africa, she shares, in this dedicated space, stories of struggle and emancipation.
The public is first welcomed by a series of postcards that set the tone for the visit. “Greetings from Calais” and “Greetings from Ventimiglia” are stamped on them. The nomadic artist took these photographs in areas of high migratory tension. The contrast between the poetry of travel and the violence of exile is striking.
A series of photographs at the French-Italian border, in Morocco and Spain, is displayed on the wall. The artist captured the violence of the in-between in a reportage where the hope of people in migration is highlighted. This project is accompanied by fragments of a travel journal belonging to the artist in poetic prose.
Violence Silenced
A wallpaper, wooden masks, a video, and a soundtrack form the installation called The Season of Struggles. In Cameroon, Caroline Trucco became interested in the war waged by French colonial troops against Cameroonian independence fighters from 1955 to 1967. “The installation evokes songs of resistance, rites, and places of repression.” The experience is sensory, with incisive whispers echoing through.
An area is dedicated to viewing a film titled Do Statues Also Die?, shot in Cameroon between 2019 and 2022. It intertwines various voices and stories that all speak of ” confiscated words “. Masks and statues intended for export to the West are stored in local workshops, forming a “mound of violence”. Over these images, the narrator recounts her rape. Powerful phrases can be read, such as “statues can scream, flesh attests” or ” because silence always favors the guilty “.
Reflection on Colonialism
The artist uses a popular reference to engage the public: the album of Tintin in the Congo. By blackening the pages with paint, she highlights certain elements. The highlighted drawings represent different forms of predation. “This censorship, far from exercising a suppression, reveals how the imagination of Africa is filled with stereotypes and paternalism, products of colonial approach.” The installation is accompanied by dried Mediterranean palms as a symbol of resilience, forming Tristes tropiques.
Mirrors installed by the artist engage the public. The artist seeks to question identity. Titled Our Faces Like the Shedding of a Same Snake, the installation showcases African sculptures from all eras intertwined with statues from ancient Greece. “The setup involves the public in a reflection on the museographic classification of arts, echoing the question posed by Alain Resnais in 1953: ‘Why is African art in the Museum of Man while Greek or Egyptian art is in the Louvre?’ “
The Palais Lascaris has opened its reserve doors to Caroline Trucco. She borrowed artifacts from the former Colonial Institute of Nice founded in 1927. This addresses “the question of the collection and removal of these objects, their current status, and their future purpose.” Glass prints where images of extra-Western sculptures have been carved out question plunder. “This absence evokes the absence of these objects in their place of origin and the void left in terms of heritage.”
