« On rase tout et on met tout le monde sur la plage. C’est ce que je voudrais. Tout le monde sur la plage. On casse tout et on recommence. »

The revolution according to Marguerite Duras, carried by a seaside metaphor.
This is the starting point of the Spiaggia Libera Gallery, the free beach. In an alley in the third arrondissement of Paris, behind the Musée des Arts & Métiers, a ray of sunshine hits the window with full force, and bursts through to kiss the works. Everyone on the beach, facing the imaginary sea.

In the background, the insurrection against the intensification of the privatization of coastal areas in Italy, and more broadly against a world that is closing in on itself. Spiaggia Libera is a simple sign at the entrance of a beach indicating free access for all. This object, originally of a strictly informative nature, is transformed into an injunction, a slogan that takes on the air of resistance.

Today, Spiaggia Libera is also a free space in which the works of six women artists respond and dialogue with each other. They come from different international scenes, from different geographies. But on the beach, don’t we all look at the horizon?

The inaugural exhibition, Détruire, dit-elle, brings together as many practices around the deconstruction of codes and bodies; a movement carried by the gaze of women. The title of the exhibition is taken from a novel by Marguerite Duras, written in 1969. It is located somewhere in a hotel, between utopia and disillusion.

The incisive proposal of the author – raze everything and start over – resonates today with our attempt to find new ways of living together, bringing this idea of rebirth to our present.

Tainted with this melody, the exhibition, and mainly the works that compose it, are both memories of past revolutions and witnesses of contemporary fights. It sketches the contours, the chapters of tomorrow’s manual.

The social commitment of the artists of Détruire, dit- elle, marks their presence in the world. A commitment that is perceived through the body, a body that acts both as weapon and shield in our society. A collective momentum, a great plunge into the immense expanse. Destroy – a word that marks infinity.

The bather’s feeling of happiness is much more than the refreshing joy of cool water: by plunging into the sea, filled with the whole earth, we become sensory witnesses of a cosmic union, from the embrace of sea and land – which both long for.

Sacha Guedj Cohen