“I have always thought that there were two methods: to act directly on the world, or to try to transform it by working on its image.” Joachim Mogarra Never has Joachim Mogarra spoken of the magic of objects or related his Odyssey in His Bed as vividly as he does in his upcoming exhibition at Galerie Georges-Philippe et Nathalie Vallois. Sticking to his method of black-and-white photography, Mogarra continues to offer his trademark constructions made out of humble objects, but now enriches them with words, stories and drawings that convey both human history and highly personal stories. Literature figures prominently here: there is a well-stocked bookshelf with the famous Essais de Montaiga (28 vols) and the “Confessions” of the renowned J. Rogama (12 vols) as well as such essential diaries as the Le Journal des Gourmets, a fishing journal. The arts and travel are
represented, too, by L’ascension du canapé and L’Écosse en dix
bouteilles. But there is no need to read through the whole library, or to have a special room to house them, for the books here can be perused via photographs of their edges. Photo-novels constitute an important part of this corpus. Visitors will be able to go on a Voyage Romantique via a series of antique prints spiced up by pithy texts, or relive the artist’s Moroccan adventures along roads strewn with bread and cardboard boxes, guided by Playmobil and other figures. The Gîte et le Couvert (Board and Lodging) series invites you to open a door constituted by a champagne cork or enter into the carafe that is
Maison de Madame Irma. The exhibition teems with titles, or perhaps we should say “legends”, in both senses of the word. For these words not only explain the images, they also convey the fantasy dimension of stories in which historical facts are transformed by the popular imagination or poetic invention. Joachim Mogarra, certainly, is a legend of art!