It takes a Village

Solo show by Valentine Gardiennet

Curated by Anna Labouze & Keimis Henni
March 22 – May 18, 2025
– vernissage 21 March 2025

Curated by Anna Labouze & Keimis Henni

For her residency exhibition, Valentine Gardiennet transforms the Magasins Généraux into an imaginary village. A house with colored pencil drawings on the walls, giant dolls that sometimes seem to come to life on their own, a papier-mâché theater troupe, a library and a few ghosts surround a metal bed several meters long. A soundtrack emanates from the bed. What, at first glance, might resemble the enlargement of a child’s or teenager’s bedroom, a theater set under construction, a reconstructed crime scene or an abandoned amusement park, turns out to be an ode to the collective and the need to be many to move forward in art and life.

Les Magasins Généraux
1 rue de l’ancien Canal, Pantin

Exhibition view of « Ring my bell : il pleut la maison brûle et le téléphone sonne », La Tôlerie, Clermont-Ferrand, 2023
Drawing, painting, installation
Exhibition in collaboration with Arslane Smirnov
Photo © Ludovic Combe © Valentine Gardiennet, ADAGP, Paris 2025