Last days of the Toiletpaper & Martin Parr exhibition: one ticket bought, one free

On the occasion of the last weekend of the Toiletpaper & Martin Parr exhibition (2 and 3 April), for each ticket purchased, the second one is free!
Saturday 2 and Sunday 3 April 2022 from 11 am to 7 pm.
The second free ticket can be collected from the Villa Medici ticket office on presentation of the purchased ticket.
Offer valid only for access to the Toiletpaper & Martin Parr exhibition on 2 and 3 April.
Catalogue available on site or online.

TICKETING


L’EXPOSITION
MARTIN PARR & TOILETPAPER (MAURIZIO CATTELAN & PIERPAOLO FERRARI)
Direction artistique : Sam Stourdzé et Cookies (Alice Grégoire et Clément Périssé, pensionnaires 2020-2021 de la Villa Médicis).

The exhibition brings together for the first time the British photographer Martin Parr and the two creators of TOILETPAPER magazine, Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari, for a hypnotic journey through a visual repertoire brimming with colour.

The exhibition takes the form of an installation of more than forty photographs that occupies part of the Renaissance gardens of the Villa Medici and offers a space for autonomous wandering according to a layout designed by Alice Grégoire and Clément Périssé, architects and 2020-2021 residents of the Académie de France in Rome.

The exhibition takes as its starting point the collaboration between Martin Parr, Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari around the book ToiletMartin PaperParr published in 2020 by the publisher Damiani, and brings together side by side the most emblematic images from the prolific archives of these three artists. The human body, food and animals are recurring motifs in this photographic project, which plays on our contemporary obsession with images.

From small formats to monumental prints, the photos exhibited at Villa Medici embrace the landscape in a play of scales that underlines the biting and impertinent spirit of their authors. What better setting than the gardens of a Renaissance palace to renew the exercise of delicious contrasts? Meticulously composed images and scenes captured from everyday life resonate to form a powerful photographic narrative in which the vernacular and surrealist fiction merge together.

More information about the exhibition and the catalogue


Martin Parr is one of the best-known documentary photographers of his generation. The author of more than 120 books and the editor of 30 others, he has firmly established his photographic legacy. In 1994 he became a full member of Magnum Photographic Cooperative. Between 2013 – 2017 Martin was president of Magnum Photos. In Autumn 2017 the Martin Parr Foundation opened in Bristol. Parr’s work has been collected by many of the major museums, including the Tate, the Pompidou, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Maurizio Cattelan has exhibited internationally in leading institutions and has participated in the Venice Biennale numerous times. He curated the 4th Berlin Biennale with Massimiliano Gioni and Ali Subotnick. Cattelan also founded the art magazines Permanent Food and Charley. Since retiring from art, after the acclaimed 2011 retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, he has committed himself to publishing TOILETPAPER Magazine. In 2018 Cattelan curated the exhibition The Artist is Present at the Yuz Museum in Shanghai.

Pierpaolo Ferrari is a fashion and advertising photographer and creative researcher. In 2007, he began a collaboration with L’Uomo Vogue which offered him the chance to explore the portrait’s potential and radically change its codes. In 2009, he teamed with Maurizio Cattelan to create TOILETPAPER Magazine.

Sam Stourdzé is an exhibition curator specialising in photography and cinema.  Since 2020, he has been director of the Villa Medici; previously, he was director of the Musée de l’Élysée in Lausanne and the Rencontres d’Arles photography festival.

Cookies (Alice Grégoire & Clément Périssé) is an architecture and design studio specialised in cultural projects, based in Rotterdam, Rome and Paris. Through the creation of exhibitions, Cookies explores the relationship between art, spatial arrangements, staging and exhibition curating by focusing on projects that require a critical approach and multidisciplinary collaboration. Alice Grégoire and Clément Périssé are Fellows of the French Academy in Rome (2020-2021).
Special thanks: Anna Katarzyna Gutowska


The French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici thanks its sponsors and partners:

Main sponsor
AMUNDI ASSET MANAGEMENT

Media partner
INSIDE ART, SKY ARTE

With the support of
TECTONA PARIS, CULINARIES, AIR FRANCE

Cover image : TOILETPAPER. Exposition Toiletpaper & Martin Parr à la Villa Médicis. Photo: © Daniele Molajoli.