In Toulouse, Cérès Franco is shaking up the codes and transforming his EHPAD into an art gallery
In Toulouse, in the EHPAD La Pastellière where she has lived for a year, Cérès Franco, 95, has managed to organize an exhibition worthy of an art gallery. Like when this art collector was an exhibition curator.
All his life, Cérès Franco was nourished by painting. Internationally recognized curator, she has worked with many artists in art galleries and museums around the world. An informed collector, the Franco-Brazilian donated a large part of the works of art acquired throughout her life to the cooperative-museum that bears her name in Montolieu in Aude. This time it is in the EHPAD (Accommodation establishment for dependent people) where she has been living for a little over a year, in Toulouse, that this great lady of the art has decided to share her passion.
Since yesterday, the common living room of the Edenis La Pastellière residence has been transformed into an art gallery. On all the walls and under the large glass roof, some twenty paintings by artist Serge David Angeloff jump in the face of the visitor or the resident pushing the door. Bright colors, expressive faces sometimes joyful, sometimes tortured.
Outsider art “to open your eyes”
Outsider art deliberately chosen by Cérès Franco, “to open the eyes of these sleeping people”. The 95-year-old resident keeps hers open to the world around her. “The EHPAD is a very hard world”, she sums up in every word, “here, people are locked up, they are waiting to die and they have never been to a museum or an art gallery”.
In the art brut of Montalbanais Serge David Angeloff, she sees “colors, dancing characters, a happy painting that must be captured. The artist is there with all his soul, his heart, his illusions and his hopes. In the middle of these paintings, I feel at ease, it’s a party for me “, slips mischievously Cérès Franco who knows that some will see” horrors “where she perceives” an opening for people who are alone ” . So, the former curator does not mince his words. “Painting is not an enemy, it is there to help us. It can bring a message and develop an encounter with those who pick it up. We can meet the other through a painting, just as we can just as easily live each on his own, locked in his wall of silence, thinking that he is already dying. Life is a precious gift and anything that leads to its preservation is a gift ”.
Friend of Cérès Franco, Serge David Angeloff still has nothing to do with this adventure which comes back to his biggest exhibition. “I am very touched because for me painting is saving, I put my emotions on the canvas”, he slips.
“She planned everything”
Among the 88 residents of La Pastellière, Cérès Franco stands out. It was she who had the idea of setting up the exhibition. She also chose the works, directly in the artist’s studio in Montauban. And it was again she who determined the locations. “She had planned everything, she knew exactly where the paintings would go”, testifies Isabelle Gaultier-Blasco, director of the EHPAD La Pastellière (Edenis group), who discovered the character during the interviews that the team conducts with each newcomer for try to limit the break between home and entry into nursing homes. “We accompanied him in this exhibition project and we saw him change. This is a first and a challenge because we do not know what it will give. These canvases may be shocking, but at least they elicit comments! “
The psychologist of the residence, Sandra Pélissier, confirms: “Cérès did not choose expressionism by chance. She wanted to tell the story of the rage to live ”.
An exhibition open to all until October 31
The exhibition of paintings by Serge David Angeloff is held until October 31, 2021 in the Edenis la Pastellière residence, 36 boulevard Jean Brunhes in Toulouse.
Entrance is free and open from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Access after ringing the intercom. Health pass to present.
To extend the exhibition, a conference with Dr François Grenier, psychiatrist and pioneer of art therapy, will take place on October 21 at 4 p.m.
Registration by phone on 05 82 08 15 07.