Miles Greenberg and Marc Johnson at the Galerie Mitterrand
This Thursday evening, we attended the opening of two exhibitions at the Galerie Mitterrand, housed in a private mansion in the heart of the Marais district. From March 29th to May 16th, the gallery founded by Jean-Gabriel Mitterrand in 1988 features works by Miles Greenberg and Marc Johnson, two solo shows curated by gallery director Olivia Anani.
For the first time in France, the young Canadian performer and sculptor presents a video installation on TRUTH, a long-endurance performance held at Powerhouse Arts, New York, in May 2023. Borrowing its title from the performance, the exhibition allows us to experience, a few months later, the intensity of this gripping 7-hour happening. In TRUTH, a combat scene inspired by video games, Miles Greenberg and 7 other performers, all bathed in dark oil, engage in a sword fight amidst a vermilion-coloured volcanic pool. By contrasting poles such as love and violence through movement, Greenberg awakens our senses, inviting us to question these opposing concepts.
Marc Johnson’s solo exhibition, The Sea is History (After Derek Walcott), is inspired by Derek Walcott’s poem, published in 1979. The Franco-Beninese artist, a graduate of the Beaux-Arts de Paris and the Ecole d’Architecture Paris Malaquais, offers his own interpretation of a myth, that of an imaginary black Atlantis. Imbued with the theoretical bases of thinkers such as Donna Haraway, Saidiya Hartman and James Clifford, Marc Johnson’s new textile works evoke socio-cultural issues like the environmental crisis, but also our relationship with nature and collective memory.
On the opening evening, we met Miles Greenberg and Marc Johnson alongside curator Olivia Anani, as well as Edward Mitterrand, Jérôme Sans, Harry Nuriev, Simon Njami, Anna-Alix Koffi and Sega Bodega.
Text: Cristina López Caballer
Photos: Ayka Lux
