The title Jam Session refers to jazz codes. In a jam session, musicians improvise and build variations on a common theme. Carole Benzaken, a major figure in contemporary French painting, transposes this principle to scenography: the exhibition combines works from different periods to create unexpected visual connections through color, format, and rhythm. Each floor functions as a variation, called a "take," offering a different interpretation of the artist's work.
Conceived for the La Malmaison spaces, the exhibition brings together around 135 works (paintings, drawings, and videos) around three major paintings, begun in Los Angeles in 2002 and completed especially for this show in Cannes. Inspired by jazz and improvisation, the exhibition puts into perspective more than twenty years of creation.
For over thirty years, Carole Benzaken has been developing a body of work that plays on the appearance and erasure of images. Nourished by contemporary visual culture, cinema, and art history, her work explores how images transform and circulate over time.
