État(s) de fête opens the 2025–2026 season of the City of Mérignac, curated by Anne Peltriaux and Corinne Veyssière, co-artistic directors of les arts au mur artothèque.

The exhibition brings together photographs, videos, and installations by twenty-six invited artists – including new creations – as well as works from private and public collections: the Artothèque, Espace d’art contemporain de Caen, les arts au mur artothèque, and the Frac-Artothèque Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA, and Frac Poitou-Charentes.
With humor, tenderness, and sensitivity, it highlights the power of celebration to create togetherness, at any age, whether through intimate gatherings or large collective events. Festivities, in all their many forms – among friends, within families, in the street, the village, or the night – offer an escape toward self-reinvention, expressions of identity, and fleeting forms of community.
For Simone de Beauvoir, “celebration is above all a burning apotheosis of the present, in the face of anxiety about the future.” Far from being the mere entertainment that consumer society sometimes tries to reduce it to, it weaves social bonds and strengthens those that already exist, from the intimacy of shared moments to collective exuberance.
Celebration is an enchanted interlude. We invite you to dive into an immersive and participatory experience, in a space where desires and bodies can (still) be freely expressed!

Participating artists: Damien Auriault, Patxi Bergé, Amélie Bertrand, Katharina Bosse, Cédric Calandraud, Henri Coldeboeuf, Frédéric Desmesure, Jean Dieuzaide, Gaëlle Foray, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Coline Gaulot, Gilbert & George, Julie Glassberg, Cha Gonzalez, Frédéric Latherrade, Ange Leccia, Thomas Lévy-Lasne, Robert Malaval, Julien Nédélec, Cécile Paris, Geörgette Power, François Prost, Laurence Rasti, Bruno Serralongue, Malick Sidibé, Marianne Villière.

Curated by Anne Peltriaux & Corinne Veyssière