The Montresso* Foundation presents next April the exhibition XXL# 2. Annual ar-tistic meeting around the question of monumentality, XXL # 1 had already hosted in December 2017 the work of four emblematic artists of the urban culture.

For its second edition, XXL # 2 will again unveil four visions that probe the notion of gigantism, through an open dialogue between RERO, Hendrik Beikirch, Kouka and David Mesguich.Focusing on the human condition, this edition questions the space in a whole new perspective, offering the viewer an immersive and meditative ex-perience.This problematic finds for each of the artists different plastic and graphic answers in a sort of archeology of the future which offers to their art the freedom to exist in all their expansive potentiality.

RERO deals with monumentality through language. Peculiarity of man, the words allow him to keep a human trace in his work. He aims to divert the supports and eve-ryday objects from their primary function to make objects of contemplation. This sacralisation, the result of his immersion in Morocco, is a way of evoking the rela-tionship between private and public spaces. His series of large books locked in resin confronts the notions of virtual and physical memory and thus questions the means of transmission of our history to the future generations. A series of bas-reliefs and several installations also question the limits of the private and public spheres in the era of big data and video surveillance.

Hendrik Beikirch carries out portraits of Siberians met during his previous trips to Russia. Started for almost two years, this work is in the continuity of the project «Tracing Morocco». Deeply humanist, Hendrik Beikirch’s attempt to tell the subtle

stories of these men and women through these portraits, allows the meeting to give place to creation. As in a tribute to time, Hendrik Beikirch strives to unveil the reality of life, far from today’s canons. Presented in preview for XXL# 2, these pain-tings will be the subject of an exhibition in Moscow in December 2018. Always in the framework of the project «Siberia», Hendrik Beikirch continues in parallel his work on the public space with the realization of murals all around the world.

In an obsessive visual research on the classical portrait, Kouka questions iden-tity in an omnipresent relationship based on duality. Under the guise of the Bantu warrior, he rehabilitates the symbolic figures of a forgotten civilization. Beyond an egocentric representation that is typical of the graffiti world from which he comes, the warrior is a militant witness linked to our identity as well as to our common roots. It is by the excessiveness of his installation, both plastic and sound, that Kou-ka’s work overwhelms the visitor. While walking in this forest of Bantus, the specta-tor whose senses are solicited, shaken, provoked, finds himself in total immersion.

David Mesguich presents a work that questions our relationships to public space. Started almost two years ago, he declines all the nuances of his research on the volume. In a baroque disequilibrium, two sculptures that break up the codes of mo-numental statuary, question the notions of borders. At the same time fragile and im-placable, they impose themselves forcefully in the space. The use of a bi-chromatic palette composed of black and white suggests the architectural universe and thus evokes the urban space where the man predominates. An ephemeral monumental installation closes this group, like those he abandons in the public space as to take the viewer hostage in his daily life.

X X L # 2RERO Hendrik BEIKIRCH KOUKADavid MESGUICH

XXL#2R E R O H e n d r i k B E I K I R C H KO U K A D a v i d M E S G U I C H

Montresso* art space, Marrakech, MarocFrom April 16, 2018 to May 31, 2018.Guided tours on Saturdays at 11am on request at info@montresso.com

ACCESS THE ONLINE PRESS RELEASE

XXL#1, Jonone, Tilt, Fenx, Cédrix-Crespel at the Montresso Art , Marrakesh

Halfway between urban art and conceptual art, Rero ques-tions on one side the context of art, on the other the codes of image and intellectual property through an acronym that appears regularly in his works: WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get). DETOURNEMENT and self-censorship - he crosses out his messages with a thick black line - are the watchwords of his research on the negation of the image. Strongly imbued with philosophy and sociology, he never stops questioning the codes of our society, especially around the no-tions of consumption and obsolescence, without ever judging but by suggesting to the viewer to do so. The artist questions the limits of intimacy with what we make public, voluntarily or involuntarily, consciously or unconsciously, especially on the Internet. By a radical construction, where everything must be shown and nothing must be hidden, Rero determines the boun-dary between the inside and the outside. Born in 1983, Rero has presented his works in many public institutions such as the Pompidou Center, MAC / VAL, MAC Bogota, at the Caixa Cultural in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Brasilia, the Postal Museum, the Musée en Herbe, the Bernard Magrez Institute or the Vasarely Foundation. His work has benefited from nu-merous exhibitions in France, the United States, Turkey, Ger-many, Brazil, Colombia, Italy, Germany and Switzerland.

R E R O

2017IBID. (ÉPUISEMENT DES IDÉAUX), BACKS-LASH, Paris2016TOMESELO PERSONAL, Fabien Castanier Gallery, Bogota, Colombia2015HORS-SOL, Pavillon Carré de Baudouin, Paris VOLTA NY, with BACKSLASH, Pier 90, New York City, NYGATED COMMUNITY, Fabien Castanier Galle-ry, Los Angeles, CA2014UMWELT, Galerie Paris-Beijing, BruxellesERREUR DANS LE TITRE \ ERROR IN THE TITLE, BACKSLASH, Paris2013Supervised Independance, cycle Public and Confidential, text by Achille Bonito Oliva, Wun-derkammern, Roma

2012Openspace, ParisIMAGE NOT AVAILABLE, Fabien Castanier Gallery, Los AngelesNATURE MORTE \ STILL LIFE, Festival A-PART, Arles et Saint-Remy de Provence, FranceEIDOLON, BACKSLASH2011Le Musée en Herbe, ParisERROR 404 (lien manquant \ Page not Found), BACKSLASH, Paris2010COPY MY RIGHT… Le plagiat est nécessaire, le progrès l’implique..., Confluences, Paris2009IMAGE NOT AVAILABLE, L’Hybride, Lille, FranceVous êtes bien urbain, ARTYDANDY, Paris, France

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REROSans titre, 2018,Ancient book and adhesives letters under resine52 x 70 x 8 cm

German artist HendrikBeikirch made himself noticed thanks to his gigantic mural portraits of random anonymous he met during his many travels. In Busan, in North Korea, he painted a 230 feet tall wall. HendrikBeikirch meticulously paints each wrinkle of his models’ face, in an effort to share their story. His portraits are true life stories. The artist aims at revealing the beauty of those men and women bearing the traces of time, in our society made of bland images. His limited colour range and the contrasts he shapes underline the vulnerability of his subjects, inducing a simple relation based on emotion between the viewer and the subject. Whether they appear on the corner of a street, the front of a building or on a canvas indoor, the sincerity displayed by HendrikBeikirch’s paintbrush turns these anonymous into silent companions. HendrikBeikir-ch realized at Jardin Rouge the project Tracing Morocco, ho-mage to maalems through a book, a painting series, a murals series, and a photographic series. Now, with the foundation, HendrikBeikirch has begun a new work series about Siberia.

H E N D R I K B E I K I R C H

2017Treasures, Galerie Droste, Wuppertal2016Art Fair CologneEpoxy Exhibition, Rose Béton, Toulouse, Frnace2015TRACING MOROCCO MoroccoWAITING GermanyTRACING MOROCCO - The Drawings Swit-zerlandURBAN ART BIENNALE Germany2014MONOCHROME MATTERS DenmarkSCOPE NEW YORK USAST.ART DELHI IndiaHEERLEN MURALS the Netherlands

2013ARTCPH DenmarkINTO THE DARK AngleterreTRANSSIB – GREYHOUND GermanyII BIENNIAL GRAFFITI FINE ART Brazil2012GRAFFUTURISM USAURBAN VOID South KoreaCOUNTERPARTS GermanyGERMAN GRAFFITI AVANTGARDE IndiaVOM LEBEN GEZEICHNET GermanyBUSAN CULTURAL FOUNDATION Republic Of Korea

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Hendrik BeikirchAleksey, 2016Acrylic and ink on linen190.5 x 149.8 cm

Asserting himself with an almost obsessive work on the por-trait and the text, his painting questions the notions of iden-tity and duality. He, child Blam cultivates these differences to probe the mysteries of the universal man on canvases as well as in the street. His painting acts as a mirror on his own perso-nality where the double is omnipresent.

The «Bantus warriors» marked his first singular urban foot-print. Kouka keeps reminding us that the public space, like the world, belongs to no one and that, if it is possible to seize a territory, you cannot appropriate a culture.

His work is characterized by the expressiveness and spon-taneity of the gesture, deliberately revealing imperfections, inaccuracies and drips. The act of painting is profound; he su-perposes the scriptures on the figurative element, creating a veil between the artist’s face and the spectator that becomes protection and vector of thought. Like the venerated fetish object, the artist creates the totem, representation of the human creation by which the man connects himself to the di-vine. Its highly symbolic significance is less linked to its plastic appearance than its usual value in the rites and traditions of the world. The Bantu warrior takes a place of icon, it becomes the emblem of a forgotten reality, the history of the ancestral, of a people who is reborn visually by Kouka’s raw gesture.

K O U K A

ARt FAiRs Et BiEnnAlEs2017AKAA Fair, Paris, France2016Installation Le guerrier de la République, Bien-nale de Dakar, Ile de Gorée, Sénégal2015«Inexterieur», FIAC, Paris, FranceFestival Awaln’Art, installation, Marrakech, Maroc«8e Avenue», FIAC, Paris, FranceWynwoodWalls, Miami, USA2014FIAC OFF(icielle), Paris, FranceArt Stage Singapore, We Are Asia, SingapourNew Art Fair, Espace Pierre Cardin, Paris, France

sOlO sHOws2017Humanités, Galerie Taglialatella, Paris, France2016Dos au Mur, Jardin Rouge, Marrakech, MarocEcce Homo, Galerie Taglialatella, Paris, France2015«Butterfly», Taglialatella Paris, FranceBantous, No[s] Culture[s], Jardin Rouge, Mar-rakech, Maroc2014Solo Show, Galerie Taglialatella, Paris, France

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KOUKASans titre 1, Sans titre 2, Sans-titre 3, 2018,Mixed media on wood 100,5 x 36 cm

David Mesguich questions boundaries and their artifacts that constrain freedom of movement in the public space. David travels the cities and develops an atypical cartography by concentrating his interest for all that, in these spaces of passage, separates and divides. The artist reappropriates some plots of these aseptic territories through his monumental sculptures and drawings. David Mesguich makes digital its first place of creation, alone in the immensity of the code, he draws the first features of his subjects. His sculptures come alive with the combination of three-dimensional imaging and traditional modeling. The artist is fascinated by polygonal aesthetics, an element of language in glitch art, of video games from the 80s and 90s and the dramaturgy of baroque art. It questions the place of man in the urban environment as a space of partitioning, separation and crossing. These conditioned places made of multiple markings and signals compartmentalize and restrict both the freedom of movement and thinking. The sculptures thus question the human condition by obsessively transiting between real and digital, between public places and non-places, between legal and illegal, between past and future.

D AV I D M E S G U I C H

sElECtiOn OF sOlO EXHiBitiOns2015 Pop-up Gallery, Amiens2013 « Pressure » Backside Gallery, La friche Belle de Mai, Marseille2012 « Closed Circuit », Datta Gallery, Carhartt, Lyon2010 « Human merchandise », Galerie Raymond Ba-nas / MCL, Metz« Border line » RX Gallery, Paris2009 « Mesguich », Maison des Arts de Malakoff, Paris« Absences », RX Gallery, Paris2008 « Arty Vitrines », Hotel Sofitel, Lyon2006 « User », Chappe Gallery, Paris

Nuit Blanche, Amiensfestival Anomalies, AmiensRX gallery, Paris

sElECtiOn OF COllECtiVEs EXHiBitiOns2017Le Mur, Nancy«Open Art biennale», Orebro2016 « Festival Appel d’Air », Arras « Ghostland », Twentytwo Gallery, Lyon2015« Mister Freeze », Urban Contemporary Art Show, Toulouse « Le 9ème Element », Macadam Gallery, Bruxelles.............« Dédale », espace culturel François Mitterrand, Périgueux ........

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DAVID MESGUICH Anti-gravity, edition of three, 2017, acrylic on-polyurethane, 210 x 120 x 70 cm

Settled in Morocco since 2009, the Montresso* Foundation aims to support the creation and promote the diversity of fields of the current artistic research.

Through its artistic residence Jardin Rouge and its art space, the Montresso* Foundation is committed alongside the ar-tists to promote an inclusive approach that transcends borders and standards. In order to encourage encounters between the different pictorial and intellectual approaches, the Montresso* Foundation is also actively involved close at hand with local cultural actors by multiplying its «outside the walls» actions, thus contributing to the artistic development of Marrakech. Arts and culture play a vital role in a chan-ging contemporary society. By affirming another dimension of the present, art allows the individual to be moved, to iden-tify and query himself.

Because artists question relationships with the world and open up unprecedented perspectives, the Montresso* Foun-dation must ensure its role as an ART KEEPER.

M O N T R E S S O *A R T F O U N D A T I O N

1 olive grove, 11HA, 7 studios,8 exhibitions since 2016 in the Montresso* Art Space,54 artists were promoted since 2009,17 presentations of ending residency,15 events outside the walls (Dakar Biennale 2016, MarrakeshBiennale 2016, Museum Mohammed VI 2017, AKAA Fair 2017,1:54 Fair 2018 …)

Contact I Élise Lavigne - Press Relations for Montresso Art FoundationMail I e.lavigne@montresso.comTéléphone I +212 (0)6 08 86 42 53

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