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The Salon has become, for the time being, a bonbonnière, another name that could have served as a title for the presentation of part of the collection of prints commissioned each year by the Val-de-Marne Department in order to promote one of its most remarkable gardens, the Roseraie located in L’Haÿ-les-Roses, and to affirm a proactive approach to commissioning artists.

Rather than simply hanging according to the chronology of commissions, this first opus in a series promoting the Department’s print collection has chosen to place itself under the aegis of the American poet, playwright and writer Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) in memory of this verse: “She would engrave on the tree Rose is a Rose is a Rose is a Rose until she went all the way around it.” This gesture of engraving a tree is not without evoking certain protocols of contemporary artists who, like graffiti, leave messages in the very bark of trees. What could be closer to the engraver’s tool than the prickle of a rose to notch, to scratch or simply to draw? They are no longer prickles but splinters or pins to retain what is less well preserved: the fragrance or the seasons. A bit like Gertrude Stein and her collection The World is Round, the 23 prints chosen evoke this universe which sometimes assumes its slightly faded or outdated character.

To learn more, follow the link (in French.)