Mille Formes, Inside Matisse, Clermont-Ferrand, 2022

Mille Formes, Clermont-Ferrand

11.12.21 - 17.03.22

For the 0-6 years old exhibition at Mille formes ,
smarin presents the 'Inside Matisse' interaction and experimentation device
Observing the work of Henri Matisse, his photographic archives, his correspondence, I began to imagine his studio and to feel the intimacy shared between the artist and his assistants, the atmosphere of intense creation that flowed from it.
The idea then came to me to offer a space for meeting and «flow» as if the artist's universe had been installed in the museum, near the master's works.
Inside Matisse is a «workshop composition system» to be manipulated and installed freely, at the scale of the body in the artwork, in the studio, in the museum.
This device then becomes a new stage in the understanding of the artist's works.

Inside Matisse invites us to play the model by striking a pose, directing the installation and capturing the moment with a drawing or a digital image

- Stéphanie Marin
workshop composition system
For Matisse, the workshop is not only a neutral place of production, it is the setting for inspiration and its engine.
It is also the place of exhibition of his own work for himself or any visitor.
Matisse carefully chooses what surrounds him, thus creating a mobile environment that is transformed.

Inspired by the artist's studio, the Inside Matisse device includes a set of furniture, a large choice of fabric sections and wool felt patterns. These fabrics of varying sizes were chosen for their familiarity with the Matissian palette. Some fabrics are plain, others take up patterns inspired by the artist's paintings, some are stackable and the whole makes it possible to experiment with multiple compositions.
smarin has chosen healthy, resistant materials used in single materials: wool, oak, cork to manufacture all the parts of the device in its workshop in Nice.
image building system
«The spectator must continue painting beyond itself» - Henri Matisse.

In workshop, visitors can experience the timing of composing the picture frame.
The play of the arrangement of the different colored surfaces (pieces of fabric) in relation to each other (the mobile supports) is a moment of research to be shared.

Some install the elements of a set inspired by Matisse's work,
some can come and pose there, some take the image.



Inside Matisse, Mille formes