THE CLEMENT FOUNDATION
Presents two exhibitions on Aimé Césaire

NOUS, LAMINAIRE | COLLECTIVE EXHIBITION
SEPTEMBER 29 – NOVEMBER 24, 2023
Co-production : Tête Haute et Noire
Curators: Colette Césaire and Jean-Marc Lacabe
Photographs : Juliette Agnel, Nicolas Derné, Xuebing Du

In celebration of the 110th anniversary of Aimé Césaire’s birth and the forty years since the publication of his last collection ‘Moi, Laminaire…,’ the Clément Foundation presents a collective exhibition where the poetry of Césaire engages in dialogue with the works of three contemporary photographers: Juliette Agnel, Nicolas Derné, and Xuebing Du.
“Nous, Laminaire,” invite you to embark on a journey through the natural landscapes of Martinique, which served as the wellspring of Aimé Césaire’s poetic writing.
It is a collective path that unveils the profound self of the Poet, as well as the authentic nature of this island and its people.
Symbolic landscapes and duels: sometimes magnificent, sometimes catastrophic, sometimes both; at times energetic, at times destructive, even nightmarish, sometimes both. A nature inherently poetic.
Martinique, a land of both suffering and hope.

AIMÉ CÉSAIRE, A MAN OF RUPTURE
SEPTEMBER 29 – NOVEMBER 24, 2023
Curators : Colette Césaire and Marc Césaire
In partnership with Aimé Césaire Actuel and Tête Haute et Noire

Beyond anecdotes, which sometimes, in their touching nature, reveal more about the teller than the subject they aim to uncover; in contrast to biographical approaches that are often abundant in vain details and speculative or gratuitous interpretations; far from the controversies whose futility becomes evident over time; and even beyond pertinent but specialized analyses or exegeses—how can we appreciate, with a clear and indisputable term, the contribution of Aimé Césaire to literature, cultural reflection, and political thought and action?
In its polysemy and its numerous facets, the word ‘rupture’ emerges here as essential. For, upon closer examination, the author of ‘Notebook of a Return to the Native Land’ and the (re)creator of ‘King Christophe,’ no less than the pamphleteer who penned ‘Discourse on Colonialism’ or the critical thinker responsible for ‘Letter to Maurice Thorez,’ was, above all and primarily, a man of ruptures—understood less as a refusal or a brutal rejection, an abrupt detachment without perspective, and more as an indispensable prerequisite for superior achievements.
Therefore, let us examine and distinguish, in their singularity as well as their interconnected coherence, three essential repudiations—of aesthetic, ideological, and political nature—at the heart of Aimé Césaire’s intervention.

Source : www.fondation-clement.org