Exquis by Marie Ottavi – Hélène Delprat

Hélène Delprat is a painter and video artist. Historically represented by Christophe Gaillard, she now also collaborates with Hauser & Wirth, where she presented Monster Soup, her latest exhibition, a few months ago in Paris. The exhibition featured flags and immense carpets, as well as abundant canvases inhabited by military figures and strange, even clown-like characters, intertwined with a multitude of images gathered through endless research. Her next exhibition will take place at Fondation Maeght starting in March 2025.

The artist accepted the invitation of Catherine Millet, who had herself been invited by Albert Serra, to join Exquis, a series of discussions exploring clothing and what it reveals about us and our habits.

This meeting, the third in the series initiated by Marie Ottavi, will discuss the artist’s career, her life in the studio and away from the art world, the extravagance of her style and some of her works, and her fondness for cabaret, drag artists, and the transgressive.

“Exquisite” is a series of encounters around fashion and clothing, based on the theory of six degrees of separation and the exquisite corpse. The rules of the Exquis game are simple and fun: the first guest sheds light on the topic from their perspective. It links clothing to cinema, contemporary art, literature, music, gastronomy, and architecture. At the end of the conversation, they introduce the second person, who will in turn enrich the topic with their own vision. And so on.

Thus, a multi-faceted conversation unfolds, evolving with each encounter. It surprises and builds connections, complements or diverges, ultimately illuminating the theme through six carefully chosen perspectives. A blend of different worldviews emerges in this exploration, guided by Marie Ottavi.