These three “Lessons” will be set in the Department of Oriental Antiquities, to which the artist feels a particular affinity, so much so that she has unconsciously recreated some of the works preserved within it. In these two-part “Lessons”, developed in conversation with Ariane Thomas, she will give voice to the department’s now silent works. Sculptress, video artist, author of collages, editor and poet, Simone Fattal (born 1942 in Damascus, lives and works in Paris) is a central figure in contemporary art, which she influences as much through her deployment of artistic media as through her questioning of the most relevant issues.

Her work is exhibited in numerous museums and contemporary art venues around the world. It is less well known that, before embarking on her work, she studied at the École du Louvre, and assiduously frequented the museum, which she considers her home, to the point of having unconsciously recreated figures from it. She comes to the Louvre to converse with Oriental antiquities, to give voice, in dialogue with Ariane Thomas, director of the department, and her teams, to the divinities, spirits and rulers who are present and represented there, but who, for contemporary audiences, have become silent.

In her three “Lessons”, she will bring her artistic eye, both free and informed, to bear on these silent works, giving them a new voice. Continuing this work of mediation, she will intervene in the rooms of the department, at the entrances to the Angoulême gallery, the Cyprus gallery, and in the rooms of Nineveh, creating bridges between eras, between ancient works which are so contemporary and contemporary works with an archaic power.