Tania Mouraud

Works

Tania Mouraud

From the end of the 1960s, Tania Mouraud’s work explores the relation between art and social connections through various mediums: painting, installation, photo, sound, video, performance, etc. She proposes to add a meditation room to our standard apartments (1968). On 54 billboards in Paris (1977) she declares her disapproval of a society glorifying consumption at the expense of individuals. She investigates the decorative relation between art and war as well as the limitation of perception by creating “mots de forme” (words of shape) (1989). From 1998, she uses photo, sound and video to examine different aspects of History and Life.

CV

Born in 1942, Paris. Lives and works in Colombiers (FR)

Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur

Chevalier de l’ordre national du Mérite

Officier des arts et des lettres

PERMANENT INSTALLATIONS

‘WYSIWYG’ (1989 – 2007), wall painting, Bibliothèque Publique d’Information, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (FR)

‘La Curée’ (2004), video installation, Château de Chambord (FR)

‘HCYS’ (2005), print on tarp, Collection FRAC Lorraine, Metz (FR)

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2023

‘Da Capo’, MAMCO, Geneva (CH)

2022

‘Flashbacks’, Ceysson & Bénétière, Paris (FR)

2021

‘Mezzo Forte’, Ceysson & Bénétière, Wandhaff (LU)

2020

‘DREAM’, Sorbonne Artgallery, Paris (FR)

2019

‘Tania Mouraud, Ecriture(s)’, Hangar 107, Rouen (FR)

2018

‘Tania Mouraud, everything must have an ending except my love for you’, Salle des Expositions, Tauves (FR) (cat.)

2017

‘Who’s the enemy?’, Lieu d’art La Mouche, Beziers (FR) (cat.)

2016

‘OTNOT’, Gaep (formerly EASTWARDS PROSPECTUS), Bucharest (RO)

2015

‘Tania Mouraud. Une Retrospective’, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz (FR)

‘Tania Mouraud. Une retrospective’, Galerie de l’Arsenal, église Saint-Pierre-aux-Nonnains, chapelle des Templiers, Musée de la Cours d’Or, 49 Nord 6 Est – Frac Lorraine, école supérieure d’art de Lorraine (Ésal) Galerie Lafayette, Galerie Octave Cowbell, Galerie TouTouChic, Faux Mouvement centre d’art contemporain (at the initiative of Centre Pompidou-Metz) (FR)

2014

‘Ad Nauseam’, MAC/VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine (FR)

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2013

‘DCLLDF’, Le M.U.R, urban art, Arromanches (FR)

‘Float like a butterfly sting like a bee’, Le M.U.R Paris (FR)

2012

‘FLABASLAB’, Le M.U.R, Rue Oberkampf, Paris (FR)

‘La Fabrique’, Mostra SESC de Artes, 3C-Centre de Création Contemporaine, Sao Paulo (BR)

2011

‘J’entends les trains depuis toujours / keep hearing the trains forever’, Slought Foundation, Kimmel center and Art Alliance, Philadelphia (USA)

‘I haven’t seen a butterfly here’, Gallery Cueto Project, New York (USA)

2008

‘Roaming’, Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Paris (FR)

2005

‘Tania Mouraud, Projet In Memoriam – HCYS?’, permanent installation produced by FRAC Lorraine,  Metz (FR)

‘City performance N°1’, 54 billboards, FRAC Lorraine, Metz (FR)

1999

‘Lobby Wall’, Hammer Project, UCLA Harmmer Museum, Lobby Wall, Los Angeles  (USA)

1992

‘Tania Mouraud’, The Power Plant, Toronto (CA) (cat.)

1989

‘BLACK POWER, ICI LÀ’, Centre d’art contemporain Pablo Neruda, Corbeil-Essonnes (FR) (cat.)

‘BLACK POWER, VU OU LU’, Galerie Gabrielle Maubrie, Paris (FR)

1986

‘Vitrines’, Musée de la Photographie, Charleroi (BE)

1977

‘City Performance n°1’, 54 billboards, Paris (FR)

‘Art Space n°6’, special project, PS1, New York (USA)

URBAN ART 

2020

‘Ne faites point de mal à la terre’, for the 5th edition of Échappées d’art, Angers (FR)

2019

‘Ses os se sont changés en corail. Perles sont devenus ses yeux’, in the exhibition ‘Gigantisme – Art & Industrie’, Rubis Terminal, Dunkerque (FR)

2016

‘CTJLFDM’, 9 cities: Bucharest, Iași, Sibiu, Cluj, Bacău, Pitești, Buzău, Craiova, Roman (RO)

2015

‘ICMB’, Vitrine Galerie Lafayette, Paris (FR)

‘Dream’, RATP, metro stations Nation, Montparnasse, Franklin Roosevelt, Auber, Charles de Gaulle, Paris (FR)

‘City Performance N°1’, Metz (FR)

2014

‘MPP’, MAC/VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine (FR)

‘CQNPSRLPSCALR’, MAC/VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine (FR)

‘ALEA#18’, WIP La Villette, Paris (FR)

‘ECLHCPDC’, Saint-Étienne (FR)

2013

‘DCLLDE’, Arromanches-les-Bains (FR)

‘FLABASLB’, Paris (FR)

‘Once Upon a Time’, video projection, Nuit Blanche Toronto (CA)

2012

‘PreVitSoRaN #1 #2 #3’, video projection and sound performance, Nuit Blanche Paris (FR)

2006

‘Façade’, video projection, Musée de la Chasse, Nuit Blanche Paris (FR)

‘Machines Désirantes’, video projection, Nuit Blanche Paris (FR)

2004

‘ISHAD’, Parc de la Courneuve, Seine-Saint-Denis (FR)

1997

‘amours’, Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris (FR)

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1996

‘Les Balades de Tania’, New York (USA)

‘Les Balades de Tania à la fête de la Mirabelle’, Metz (FR)

‘EV+A’, Docks of Limerick (IE)

‘Millefeuille(s) II, III’, Quimper (FR)

1989

‘Memory’, Aéroport de Mirabelle, Montreal (CA)

1977-1978

‘City Performance n°1’, Paris (FR)

Press

“I have often been considered a politically engaged artist. But I don’t see myself in this way, because I do not belong to any political party and because I have always claimed my freedom. I feel closer to the notion of citizenship, which is for me an attitude towards life. Being a citizen means keeping your eyes open and looking at the world.”
"Honestly speaking, until recently I wasn’t interested at all in my Romanian origins. Because I was a free French republican woman. And that’s that. Then, in 2007, I went to the Sublime Objects exhibition at MNAC. My work, as big as an entire wall, contained the message: I Haven't Seen a Butterfly Here, because the museum is located in the palace of a tyrant and because it was the title of a poem written by Paul Friedman (an artist who survived in the Theresienstadt concentration camp and then killed in Auschwitz). At that time, Romania did not recognize the Holocaust and that was my way of taking revenge. This first visit was extremely difficult after so much time during which I blocked all this part of my life. Later, I went to Iasi where I recorded the work now displayed in the basement [of EASTWARDS PROSPECTUS gallery] and this is when I started to find out more about what happened with the Jewish community in Romania. Since then, I learned to play Klezmer music at the clarinet, which helped me accept my origins. And I discovered Benjamin Fondane, who has a story similar to my father’s and who wrote this verse: Crier toujours jusqu'à la fin du monde. In a way, this is also my message – whatever happens in this world, it cannot silence me. I will scream until the end of the world."
“On billboards across Romania I present a work based on a verse by Benjamin Fondane, Crier toujours jusqu'à la fin du monde, using a formally distinctive typography that I created in the late 1970s - long letters stretched to the limits of legibility. (…) For me it’s very important that this verse is shown here, particularly in Iași and Roman, in the public space. It is as if Romania welcomes Benjamin Fondane with open arms.”
“For almost four decades, Tania Mouraud has been taking her powerful artistic messages to the streets to make a statement that is socially and autobiographically relevant. (…) It is through the repetition of the message that the work becomes more powerful in the public space”, says Tania Mouraud. „By using the mechanisms of advertisements, I am challenging the viewer to look at art in a place where art does not usually exist. To the people who make the effort to take time to decrypt my work, I address a confidence.”
“Cred că transgresez regulile societății, pentru că adesea, când fotografiez sau filmez, merg în locuri unde doar bărbații merg. La fel de adevărat este că nu-i arăt pe ei. Nu există oameni în lucrările mele, ci doar utilaje. Mă simt liberă în această lume a bărbaților. (…) Nu mă preocupă tehnica. Sunt un soi de geek și îmi place tot ce este nou. Dacă nu mi-e familiară o anumită tehnologie, o învăț pur și simplu. Pentru că am făcut mult timp fotografii pe film, am un ochi format. În plus, sunt foarte influențată de pictură. Știu exact ce vreau în privința rezultatului estetic. Folosesc aparatul foto pentru a face o pictură a secolului al XXI-lea.”

Exhibitions