Marie Voignier

“There is always a monster hidden in the films of Marie Voignier, a material or theoretical entity that cannot be depicted, an adversary of reason whose deafening rumble affects real situations. This overwhelming subject is systematically off-stage, protagonists. Whether this monster is a "real" fabulous animal hunted in the jungle, colonisation or the totalitarian system, it is only ever evoked remotely and fleetingly. A central but elusive stage phantom. In a sort of devious entomology, Marie Voignier's cinema finally takes a look at looking itself as if the microscope were to turn back and explore the eye that observes through it. Showing that there is no neutrality of observation, her films represent so many critical, sharp but nondirective visions of a state of the world, which remain open to interpretation, relying on a ballistic precision and a poetic imagery.” Guillaume Désanges, "Marie Voignier," in Les cahiers du 19 (L'effet de réel, Fabienne Bal/andras, Marie Voignier), Le 19, CRAC, Montbéliard, September 2016 a utopia that the spectator experiences by proxy and snippets, via the narrative of the (2022) both related to her researches and interviews conducted prior to the making . ...

We founded Marcelle Alix in 2009 in Paris and settled in a characteristic, early 20th-century boutique in Belleville. The gallery is for us a creative space, where the dialog with artists is not only meant to selling artworks, but is also based on an equal relationship to creativity. We now represents thirteen artists and two duos. Our identity has been built with the support of the artists who opened our programme (Aurélien Froment, Louise Hervé & Clovis Maillet, Charlotte Moth, Ernesto Sartori, Marie Voignier) and those we introduced to the French art scene (Pauline Boudry/Renate Lorenz, Ian Kiaer, Donna Gottschalk). During these years, we have supported broad artistic careers (Laura Lamiel, Liz Magor and Mira Schor whose work we represent exclusively in Europe) and accompanied the development of new perspectives in sculpture (Gyan Panchal, Jean-Charles de Quillacq) in video (Lola Gonzàlez), and in drawing (Armineh Negahdari). Our gallery has been a pioneer in defining a space for queer art in France : in addition to showing her work within the artist duo Boudry/Lorenz since 2011, we have directed the translation into French of Renate Lorenz's 2012 seminal book, « Queer Art » in 2018. Since 2019, we have exhibited photographs by Donna Gottschalk documenting the lives of women living with women who were involved in the lesbian movement in the United States in the 1970s. In 2023 we organised an exhibition for the Utopi.e award—first award in France for Lgbtqi+ art—for which we have invited Paris galleries Air de Paris and Sultana as fellow participants. We insist on the central role of a gallery in the ecosystem of art as a place to make idiosyncratic positions visible and weave a critical narrative around the most contemporary visual forms. ...