Jousse Enterprise-Saint Claude

Philippe Meste is one of those artists better known for their actions than for their works of art.

His Attaque du port de guerre de Toulon, his Poste militaire at Marseilles’ flee market have, in the art world, this aura of legends and tales that often acts take when first put together for a public of sailors and antiquity addicts.

Violent, brutally inscribed in the outdoor reality, they are examples of defiance towards a mannerist culture, a born dead art. This is to say how an exhibition to him is problematical.

The gallery’s white cube tends to reify everything, a clinic antechamber and museum’s morn. A chosen public comes here to contemplate objects always emphasised a little cooler or warmer. It seems that to play this game, Meste has inevitably had to deny himself.