New series and exhibition commissioned by the castle of Malmaison in Paris. Karine Laval created new images in the gardens of the castle of Malmaison and in the park Bois Préau outside Paris during an artist residency in the summer of 2021. The following year she conceived a public art installation and exhibition throughout the parc Bois Préau, and the gardens and castle of Malmaison from May through September 2022.
Karine Laval or how the known becomes strange, escapes us and leads us into a world of lush greenery with explosive colors.
You think you know the castle of Bois-Préau, you discover it in the distance standing out against an orange-pink sky with a disturbing clarity; you are certain of the colors of the facades of Malmaison and you see them declined in a palette of yellow to mauve, through the tall grasses of the fallow meadow; you think you are walking through the familiar leafy trees of our oceanic lands and you are transported to a bewitching blue-green tropical nature in which no one can venture; you peacefully observe the birch trunks of Bois-Préau and the effect felt is that of the Russian taiga and its vast expanses….
This is indeed the talent of Karine Laval, photographer of international reputation, solicited from London to New York, to know by her scrutinizing gaze of photographer and by her incredible talent as a colorist artist, to invite us to reinvent the wise landscapes of which we are customary.
Josephine’s estate has, to our delight, seduced Karine who spent hours walking through the parks of Malmaison and Bois-Préau, capturing here a landscape perspective, there a remarkable tree, here a gnarled trunk, there an ancient rose. In addition to these photographs created especially for Malmaison and Bois-Préau are some large panoramas from Laval’s now famous Heterotopia series, which has established her notoriety so well.
It is this journey through 25 stations that you are offered to follow, for the first time, between the two parks of the national museum, Josephine's estate. And to invite you to go deeper into the mystery of these magical and fantastic views, come inside Malmaison itself to discover how the Empress' Liliaceae porcelain service or the works of Saint Helena spoke to the emotion of the artist.
Elisabeth Caude, Director of châteaux de Malmaison et Bois-Préau
In view of the variety of her exhibition venues, museums or galleries, metro station in New York or airport in San Francisco, department stores in Paris such as Bon Marché and La Samaritaine (Hotel Cheval Blanc), Louis Vuitton store, a gigantic tower entrance hall visible from the outside in London or her own garden in Brooklyn, Karine Laval is an artist "outside the walls" playing on the boundaries between public space and private space, leisure areas and transit areas, or places of contemplation and places of consumption. Her work is aimed both at informed audiences who have come specially to see it and at the many people who come across her installations by chance. Thanks to the originality of her gaze and her talent as a colorist, she has become a master in capturing the attention of passers-by and plunges them unexpectedly into her surreal and luxuriant universe. Whether it is the place where her images arise or the expression of her singular gaze on a familiar environment, Karine illustrates how emotion is in the unexpected.
Thus, the proposed itinerary brings together the photographs that Karine has taken in situ with those of her emblematic series Heterotopia whose tropical accents recall all Josephine’s passion for the flora of distant countries. Throughout this parcourse, once again Karine decompartmentalizes the spaces: the exteriors and interiors of the estate intermingle. Nature erupts on all floors of the Château de Malmaison just as the parakeets once invaded the vestibule with their song. Between unreality, transformed reality and perception of the landscaped viewpoints that inspired the artist, this exhibition accompanies the wanderer from the park of Bois-Préau to the castle of Malmaison through its gardens.
Emmanuel Delbouis, Curator