The Serpent’s Eye

Artists: Carolina Caycedo, Chioma Ebinama, Simone Fattal, Barbara Hammer, Kate Newby, Sophie Podolski, Kiki Smith

Throughout autumn, the first floor galleries feature works by seven artists on the theme of animism and native myths. The exhibition’s title is borrowed from a collection of Japanese folk tales and serves as the doorway to a world of beliefs and rituals seen through the eyes of international artists rarely shown in France.

Representing different generations and cultures, they share an interest in connections with the earth, with plants and with an inherent life force. Several recent additions to the museum’s collection are presented (works by Carolina Caycedo, Simone Fattal, Sophie Podolski) plus two site-specific installations made for the castle Hunt Gallery by New-Zealand artist Kate Newby.

Suspended between dream and magic spell, The Serpent’s Eye offers a vision of mankind melded with the natural world. Spirits from Igbo mythology evoked in Chioma Ebinama’s blue-tinted drawings join the company of feminine figures dancing with lion, wolf and bear in sculptures by Kiki Smith.

The same overwhelming meditative thrall of landscape so central to Kate Newby’s artistic practice of collecting, observing and composing also finds expression in Simone Fattal’s endeavour to seize fleeting shapes of clouds on the horizon.

Ultimately, all these poetic perspectives are the fruit of introspection into ecology, renewed faith in ancient wisdoms and the need to find new models for continued existence on our planet.

The Musée d’art contemporain de la Haute-Vienne was opened in 1985 in the château de Rochechouart on the initiative of the Haute Vienne département council. It includes a major collection of contemporary art works and offers a range of exhibitions.

Located within the château de Rochechouart, the museum differentiates itself through a permanent dialogue between contemporary creation and historical heritage. From the museum’s early years onwards, permanent works have been commissioned from international artists (Giuseppe Penone, Dora Garcia, Yona Friedman, Richard Long).

Each year, in parallel to the contemporary collection and Raoul Hausmann Resource Library, the museum organises themed or monographic exhibitions dedicated to the most current contemporary art (Jochen Lempert, Babette Mangolte, Anthony McCall, Simone Fattal, Carolee Schneemann, Laure Prouvost…).

The Serpent’s Eye was made possible through the generous contributions of Balice Hertling Galleries (Paris), Fortnight Institute (New York), Catinca Tabacaru (Bucharest), Instituto de vision (Bogotà), KOW (Berlin) as well as the Barbara Hammer Estate, Joelle de La Casinière and Catherine Podolski.