Cet élixir at Moly-Sabata / Sablons

Cet élixir / curated by Joël Riff

Artists: Jean-Marie Appriou, Hélène Bertin, Jagna Ciuchta, Johan Creten,

Anne Dangar, Étienne Mauroy, Pakui Hardware, Paloma Proudfoot, Henri
Ughetto, and Phoebe Unwin


21st September – 3rd November, 2019


Moly-Sabata

1, rue Moly-Sabata
38550 Sablons
France







Once upon a time there was a magical plant. Its roots were as black as
night. Its flowers were as white as milk. In the Odyssey, Hermes offers this
bulb to Ulysses to counter Circeus’ spells. The antidote brings back to
humanity. A few centuries later, in the south of Lyon where River Rhône
marks a turn, the population annoyed by the fury of incessant sabbaths,
pray so hard that their saint patron goes from the sky down, and under the
figure of a young pilgrim, seeded a vegetal which pushs disturbers out. The
remedy ensures tranquility. Over time, the beneficial powers of this panacea
persists, and all sources agree to call it Moly. Recent pharmacological
studies identify this kind of garlic celebrated by ancient mythology and by
local beliefs, as the snowdrop, Galanthus Nivalis, which announces spring
in the park of our artist-in-residence. At the crossroads of science and
superstition, its concoction requires a lot of paraphernalia, this specific
tableware as technical than symbolic. Because without object, no worship.
It’s about containing the sacred. Far from chasing witches, on the opposite,
the new exhibition at Moly-Sabata awakens the legends of the nectar with
which its name resonates. The group show Cet élixir invites to enchantment,
with artworks that activate its ceremony. Fantastic flora, humors and vessels
commit us to communion in both climates of contemplation and of labour,
peculiar to the place, as under the influence of a charm.
New site-specific productions by Hélène Bertin, Jagna Ciuchta, Étienne
Mauroy, Pakui Hardware, and Paloma Proudfoot, all invited in residency
during summer 2019
ADAGP, Lithuanian Culture Institute, Institut Polonais de Paris, Sans titre
(2016), Peut être, De Baecque & Associés, Cavo Valérius and Commune
de Sablons are partners of the show.
Moly-Sabata team thanks artists, their studios, galleries Jan Kaps
(Cologne), Almine Rech (New York, Paris, Bruxelles) and Amanda
Wilkinson (Londres), and Dominique Ughetto as well.
The Ministère de la culture et de la communication – DRAC Auvergne-
Rhône-Alpes, the Région Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, the Département de
l’Isère and the Communauté de Communes Entre Bièvre et Rhône support

Fondation Albert Gleizes fot its artist-in-residence program at Moly-Sabata.