EXPOSITION : JOURS OUVRABLES DE LAIDA LERTXUNDI
The contemporary art center is dedicating an exhibition to Laida Lertxundi, whose work combines structural cinema, conceptual art, and embodied feminist perspectives—often informed by collective dynamics and personal experiences such as motherhood. Come discover her art!
Laida Lertxundi is a Basque artist and filmmaker who lived and worked in Los Angeles for 16 years. Today, she is a professor at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Lyon and lives and works in Paris.
Laida Lertxundi’s artistic approach, characterized by a meticulous exploration of the moving image and, more recently, drawing, develops an explicit language grounded in an exploration that combines conceptual rigor and sensuality. Thus, her films draw parallels between landscape and the body as an experience.
Her collaborative practice features improvised gestures and spontaneous collective activities, and engages with the landscape both as an artistic tradition and as a unique set of perspectives tied to the human experience. The creation of this repertoire of images opens up a cinematic dimension in which visual elements activate collective memories, or even a shared artistic unconscious. Her commitment to the simplicity of gestures echoes what we strive to achieve at the art center: to forge connections between contemporary art and care. Attentive to these evolving ideas, Laida Lertxundi’s protocols aim to create a resolutely intuitive visual aesthetic. She reveals artistic rigor and a profound sense of otherness.
Hosting Laida Lertxundi at the contemporary art center means taking the time to revisit our relationship with cinema, a theme so dear to the center’s programming. This first exhibition by the artist in France prioritizes a committed form of communication through an aesthetic approach rooted in encounter and gentleness.
Laida Lertxundi enables us to envision a gradual and collaborative process through the implementation of a set of reflections and tools designed to support her research and artistic production in France. The contemporary art center, located in the Central Pyrenees region, thus firmly anchors its work at the very heart of artistic creation.
A filmmaker and visual artist, she develops an experimental practice that moves away from traditional narrative forms to prioritize process, materiality, and sensory experience. Rooted in Californian landscapes and the Californian imagination, her work blends structural cinema, conceptual art, and embodied feminist perspectives, often informed by collective dynamics and personal experiences such as motherhood. Her films and installations explore the relationships between the body, language, sound, and image through mechanisms of translation and transformation.
With support from the PICE program of Acción Cultural Española, AC/E.
Curated by Valérie Mazouin
Opening reception on Friday, July 3, 2026, at 7 p.m.
The opening will be preceded at 6 p.m. by a guided tour with the artist, followed by a meal open to all (Price: 5?)
