The Fundamental Movement
By Claude d’Anthenaise, curator of the Hunting and Nature, Paris, France
For Marie-Noëlle de La Poype, nature is beautiful by itself and does not need to be enriched by art. So, in her work, she proceeds in a singular way. Having always been fascinated by the archaeological approach, she collects fragments of nature, bones of cetaceans, pieces of slate, which she is satisfied to place in situation, by bringing them the minimum of modifications.
In doing so, it seems that she finds the primordial artistic gesture. The one which, well before the cave paintings, translates the questioning of the first men, their glance carried on the astonishing cleavage of a stone or on the strange rejections of the sea. The one that led them to erect, one on the other, the pebbles on the shore in vain defiance of an uncertain vertical opposed to the infinite mystery of the waters, a quest for permanence in the face of the passage of time. In their extreme bareness, the works of Marie-Noëlle de La Poype join the spirituality of the cairns. They have the secret of the stones which sing and communicate the dizziness of the unfathomable spaces and the immense durations.