Yoko Ono / Claire Tabouret: One day I broke a mirror

Following the exhibition by Annette Messager, the Académie de France à Rome – Villa Medici is opening its doors to Yoko Ono and Claire Tabouret with One day I broke a mirror, from May 5 to July 2, 2017. This is the second exhibition in the Une series initiated by Villa Medici director Muriel Mayette-Holtz and curated by Chiara Parisi.

Featuring artist-icon Yoko Ono and Claire Tabouret, that astonishing revelation of the latest generation, One day I broke a mirror is going to be a must on this year's rich international art calendar.

From Cardinal Ferdinand's galleries to the Loggia, and from the splendid gardens to the Balthus Studio, the works of these artists interact in a musical counterpoint that will transform the Villa Medici into a unique project for two solo voices.

One day I broke a mirror is the title chosen by Yoko Ono for an exhibition mainly exploring the output of an eclectic, multidisciplinary artist of the 1960s and 1970s who was very active on the New York underground scene.

Involving instructions, "chance" and sensory experiences, her works require the active participation of the public in order to achieve completeness and totality.

All these elements, as well as many others, echo through Claire Tabouret's big canvases, with their conditioned, armored, constrained bodies. Tabouret has earned critical acclaim for her vivid, mysteriously timeless colors, her determined-looking women warriors, her hordes of disguised children brandishing light sabers in a mingling of Paolo Uccello and the imaginary realm of Star Wars. After taking part in the group show Shit and Die curated by Maurizio Cattelan and L’illusione della luce at the Palazzo Grassi in 2014, she is back in Italy with new works from her studio in Los Angeles, where she is now based.

The strong women, that together are vulnerable, portrayed by Claire Tabouret in the new productions for the exhibition at Villa Medici, reverberate with Yoko Ono’s first artworks; they are adventuresses that defy the visitor to undertake a journey through continents and time.

There is a kind of shock wave running through the exhibition, a movement that develops into protest, a kind of pacific but unyielding insurrection on the part of individuals and groups confronting each other, standing up to each other, each with a gesture that becomes symbolic of its own everyday resistance. It is a constructive confrontation and dialog between two artists of different generations and different creative process but united by a sharp reflection on the role of the artist, on the condition between being in the world and withdrawing from it; between being a warrior, an adventuress and a conqueror, and the desire to stay apart, to observe reality with discretion. The game takes a fundamental role because it enables both not to take themselves too seriously and to free themselves from any kind of social and academic constraint. Thus, the game shows the strength of solidarity, and becomes a popular instrument that federates people.

The image of the mirror in the title chosen by Yoko Ono provides an opportunity for both comparison and confrontation: to break the mirror is also to go through and beyond it. A metaphor, you might say, for the Villa Medici, which almost seems bent on protecting the artists from the noise of the street; but the fury of life and art bursts in, shattering the Renaissance idyll.

A double catalogue, part of the new contemporary art series and published in English, French, and Italian by Electa-Mondadori, is devoted to the two artists and it include a notes, ideas booklet and images of the artists' works, with also conversations between Yoko Ono, Caroline Bourgeois and Chiara Parisi.
 

Press contacts:
French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici
Marta Colombo: T +39 340 34 42 805 / martacolombo@gmail.com
Francesca Venuto: T +39 349 57 80 211 / francescavenuto.@gmail.com