Parisian gallery Marcelle Alix is invited to Maison Louis Carré to present four of their artists: Ian Kiaer, Laura Lamiel, Charlotte Moth and Mira Schor. Isabelle Alfonsi and Cécilia Becanovic, co-founders of Marcelle Alix, like to think of the gallery as a place close to the studio, where the place of residence and the place of work often merge:
“For the last fifteen years, we have imagined the Marcelle Alix gallery as a space linked to domestic life, far from the intimidating effects of the ‘White Cube’. Opening our workplace to the reception of the affects that animate the works and thus recognizing the political importance of the ‘personal’ as it resonates in feminist struggles, makes us particularly sensitive to the invitation we received to think of the house imagined by Alvar Aalto for the gallery owner Louis Carré as an environment conducive to the accomplishment of each person.
‘The Extra Step’ [La marche supplémentaire], described in Practicalities by Marguerite Duras, former neighbor of the Maison Louis Carré in Neauphle-le-Château, is the one women must brick up in front of their threshold to take their impulse towards emancipation.”
Photos: Aurélien Mole
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Maison Louis Carré is Alvar and Elissa Aalto’s only building in France, designed for the French art dealer Louis Carré and his wife Olga in 1959. Lying 40 kilometers southwest of Paris it combines buildings, garden and interior in a total work of art. The villa is remarkably preserved with most of its original furniture as well as the couple’s everyday objects. Today it is owned by the Association Alvar Aalto en France, which was founded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation in 2006. The house is open to the public. Exhibitions of contemporary art and other events are organized regularly.
