PRESENTATION: Par Quatre Chemins

The exhibition “Par quatre chemins” brings together artists who explore the landscape not as a fixed motif, but as a relational and dynamic space. Through material and space, artists and architects become mediators of a complex relationship between humans and their environment. From the Land Art of the 1960s to in situ and contextual practices, space becomes simultaneously material, agent, and narrative. Their practices offer critical and sensitive alternatives to the production of geographical knowledge. They weave new dialogues between experience, intuition, and knowledge, opening up territories where often contradictory worlds can coexist.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Château La Coste Archive

“Par quatre chemins” brings together both mediators and catalysts. Nourished by their movements—whether voluntary or forced—within a globalized art world, they connect territories and diverse forms of knowledge, producing unique cartographies. Though mobile, they are not deterritorialized; their relationship to place becomes a geo-graphy in the literal sense—a situated writing, creative acts that generate new ways of producing locality. Around ten in situ works created within the landscape respond directly to Château La Coste—its architecture, geography, materials, or even the inhabitants of the region—while others refer to specific places, whether real, symbolic, or spiritual. The exhibition unfolds as a fluid journey, without imposed linearity, where each pavilion raises its own set of concerns. Among the artworks on display:  “Théâtre du repos” by Carla Adra was created in situ in collaboration with Oxanna Bertrand. A pool tarp is spread out on the lawn, with mattresses inviting visitors to lie down and rest. In reality, there is nothing beneath the tarp: Adra presents the illusion of a pool, and visitors experience the illusion of rest. On the tarp is painted a mental cartography, prompting reflection on the notions of rest, tourism, and luxury. The plastic blue of the fake pool reflects the blue of the sky; within it, Carla Adra’s words resemble planets. The creation of this piece involved conversations with the staff of Château La Coste: if luxury is a setting—a theater of rest—what do those who operate its inner workings have to say? These exchanges are presented as a performance. The texts were written and reworked by Oxanna Bertrand. Playing with formal and conceptual paradoxes, Mathilde Albouy’s sculptural work invites the viewer into a game whose rules remain undefined. It is unclear whether the encounter with her sculptures is one of seduction or predation—confronting us with a sense of dangerous allure. Deeply influenced by feminist science fiction, Albouy uses the fictions generated by her pieces as political tools to challenge established, binary realities. By altering scale and subverting materials, she transforms sharp or toxic objects into full-fledged beings, revealing how the beauty of objects—particularly those coded as feminine—can perpetuate systems of oppression. “Seeking – Sickening – Silence” sets the stark verticality of three black lacquered screens against an organic, intertwining movement of bronze branches. The monolithic black forms rise like silent partitions, marking the threshold of a new space. At their summits, delicately balanced, the bronze winds and weaves—prompting the viewer to question its nature. Taisiia Cherkasova is a multidisciplinary artist whose work moves between painting and sculpture, creating hybrid and immersive pieces. In the “Born to be wild” series, Taisiia Cherkasova captures memories of her most recent visit to Ukraine through a process that is both symbolic and material. By immersing her personal clothing in wax, she gives it a new form—transforming it into sacred objects upon which she paints echoes of her past.

Caroline Corbasson explores both the infinitely vast and the infinitesimally small through works that intertwine science and imagination. Created in 2013, “Anomalia” is a series of charcoal drawings made directly on the original pages of the Atlas Eclipticalis. In this work, the artist introduces black holes onto celestial maps, evoking past or future cosmic dramas. The poetry of “Anomalia” lies in the tension between the meticulous cartography of the sky and the intrusion of mystery, symbolized by these voids. Through this gesture, Caroline Corbasson reminds us that no matter how thoroughly we attempt to map the universe, there will always remain shadows—unknown spaces beyond our grasp. Dhewadi Hadjab’s paintings are both surprising and unsettling, marked by an intriguing beauty. Photography and painting are jointly central to his artistic practice. Each of his canvases begins with a photograph of a model placed in a position of extreme discomfort, constraint, or even danger. Through meticulous execution and a strikingly realistic style, he amplifies the smallest details of these contorted bodies, giving them a powerful sculptural intensityDhewadi Hadjab presents two monumental canvases, each over three meters high, depicting upside-down female bodies. Their arms rest on the ground while their feet struggle to stabilize a teetering prie-dieu. The artist deliberately leaves the interpretation open, inviting viewers to reflect on the transformation and vulnerability of the human body. Isaac Lythgoe’s work offers an open-ended exploration of emerging technologies and how they might shape future societal structures. Ethics, romance, and mortality serve as a foundation for a research-based practice that considers the integration of synthetic and biological systems as one of the most fertile grounds for shifts and challenges in human experience. Conceptually and materially, these themes manifest as works that function like stories—staged through a blend of symbolic organic materials and new media techniques. With the meticulous polish of a movie prop crafted by a set designer, his work evokes a cinematic perfection. The title “I Don’t Remember Anything You Said to Me Last Night” suggests a breakdown in communication—an emotional or cognitive disconnect. Lythgoe frequently engages with haunting reinterpretations of beloved childhood characters, such as Peter Pan and Pinocchio. In this piece, he turns his attention to Bambi, the young deer immortalized in Disney’s 1942 film. The work can be read as a broader metaphor for the polarization so prevalent in many facets of contemporary life. Mateo Revillo’s works are conceived as landscapes, primarily through painting, while also engaging with territorial organization—such as architecture and installation. Whether through paintings, assemblages, or site-specific interventions, his goal is to create a spatial unity into which the work seamlessly integrates. Revillo develops a new grammar of landscape—situated between painting and architecture—that reflects the ambiguous continuity between an image and its setting. His painting practice unfolds organically through geometric forms that behave like foldable structures, integrating space into the work. They evoke fragments of frescoes belonging to a larger imagined ruin—a ruin yet to be visualized. Projected along a 24-meter-long wall, “Rogers’ Wall” stretches across 21.6 meters as a slender fissure—a linear landscape whose colors emerge from a deep black, like a fossilized surface. It is Revillo’s longest piece to date. Built from modular construction elements, cut and multiplied, the painting fractures to become architecture—expansive, integrated, and monumental. It gives form to the thickness of time: fossil fragments embedded within it bear witness to millions of years gone by.

Participating Artists: Carla Adra, Mathilde Albouy, Marlon de Azambuja, Baptiste & Jaina, Taisiia Cherkasova, Caroline Corbasson, Paul Créange, Kenny Dunkan, Justine Emard, Andrew Erdos, Sara Favriau, John Fou, Henri Frachon, Gerard & Kelly, Olga Grotova, Pauline Guerrier, Dhewadi Hadjab, Clara Imbert, Ángela Jiménez Duran, Nika Kutateladze, Amalia Laurent, Thibault Lucas, Isaac Lythgoe, La Méditerranée, Juliette Minchin, Sabine Mirlesse, Florian Monfrini, Winnie Mo Rielly, Marie Luce Nadal, Daniel Otero Torres, Mateo Revillo, Edgar Sarin, Pier Stockholm, Maxime Testu, Minh Lan Tran

Photo: Par quatre chemins, Exhibition view, Château La Coste- Le Puy-Sainte-Réparade, 2025, Photo: Martin Argyrolo, Courtesy Château La Coste

Info : Curators: Yvannoé Kruger and Margaux Knight, Château La Coste, 2750 Route de la Cride, Le Puy-Sainte-Réparade, France, Duration: 12/4-9/6/2025, https://chateau-la-coste.com/