Keen to invite agnès b., the Galerie des Galeries has given wonderfully gifted individual carte blanche to put together an exhibition for this summer. Allowed a free rein, agnès b. decided to work with the internationally renowned French artist Claude Lévêque.
Lévêque will be presenting «Hymne à la joie» (Hymn to Joy), a new installation to be created "on site", it will submerge visitors in a powerful atmosphere and will spark their participation, free, physical, real participation.
The show will be prolonged visually in a lasting way, moreover, thanks to the exhition of the "le réveil de la jeunesse empoisonnée" neon light and a limited edition of the photographic image «Hymne à la joie» (12 March 2011), each print numbered and signed by Claude Lévêque. Brought out by Éditions Bernard Chauveau, the photographic prints will be on sale at the Galerie des Galeries bookshop and on the publisher’s website.
"Claude Lévêque, my dear Claude is an artist whose work I have the honor of knowing and knowing well for over twenty years! I even represented him at the agnès b. Galerie du Jour for several years. I’ve been with him to rock concerts, a music that he particularly loves and uses in his work as well. I find his work magnificent, like him; he creates a particular atmosphere in the venues he takes over by arranging (…), they become a language associated with sound and light; then there are the neon lights. For me, it is Claude who has best employed this technique in phrases and words that show an obvious poetry and great visual power as well."
agnès b., on Claude Lévêque’s work. Text written for the «Hymne à la joie»
From 21 June to 20 August 2011
Galeries Lafayette First floor
40 boulevard Haussmann,
75009 Paris
Monday through Saturday from 11 am to 7 pm - Free admission -
