Ô Saisons, ô Chats ! Alain Séchas

From January 16 to April 5, 2020, the MABA presents an exclusive exhibition of Alain Séchas. For the occasion, the art center will present a selection of paintings and drawings never exhibited before around the late 19^th century bourgeois imagery inspired by the place. Melancholy, idleness and a special attention paid to the passing of time span through the exhibited artworks and the emotional states of their protagonists.

The MABA is part of the Fondation des Artistes Distorting Rimbaud’s verse Ô Saisons, ô Châteaux ! (O Seasons, o Castles!) for his protagonists to fit in, Alain S´chas plays on the poem ambivalence: the sensuality and voluptuosness of bodies on one hand, and on the other, the melancholy that prefigures the depths of dispair and loneliness of A Season in Hell published a year later. A range of emotional states his lone - sometimes pairs of - cats can easily relate to...

Thanks to Alain Séchas, the Smith-Champion Castle – as it used to be called, with a bit of exaggeration given it was merely a 17th century lustschloss – is given its former designation, yet shortened to “Chats” (times have changed!). The castle is taken over by cats. They get a sensitive or more audacious hold of it; decorating it; spending seasons loafing along its rivers and forests, full of the melancholy of the summer just gone, or simply of the inexorable passing of time. But suddenly… they disappear. Dropping out of our sight, they reappear in some other places to play a trick on us! Sometimes, they also drink too much alcohol and smoke too much cigars or cigarettes, forgetting that they are (almost) forbidden goods; and they say or behave in politically incorrect or irreverent ways. But nobody hold them responsible, because O Seasons, o Cats! What soul is without blame? This exhibition is supported by Laurent Godin Gallery.

Exhibition from January 16 to April 5, 2020

MABA

16, rue Charles VII

94130 Nogent-sur-Marne, France