Solo exhibition of  Maude Léonard-Contant at the Kunstmuseum Luzern in Switzerland.

Maude Léonard-Contant: spot on
6 June - 17 September, .2023
Kunstmuseum Luzern, Luzern

Cattail
I wanted you from afar for so long. Now that I revolve daringly around you, it’s for your fleshy stem that I do; I burn to bite into its tender raw core, even knowing that at the last moment, the stagnant water from which your broad leaves rise will hold me back. My sweet, my stiff and supple at once, it’s only a matter of time: I will yield to your goodness, the most delicious sentence there is.

Asclepias
Thank you for standing guard during the years of happiness. Your milk stuck to my fingers and stained my clothes. Indeed, I split open your pods to reach your coma, and spread sequin-like seeds by pulling your silk – unknowingly participating in your dissemination. We spent one summer hanging you upside down to feed our chickens, unaware that the steroid molecules in your latex were slowly poisoning them (the same story goes for your medicinal virtues, well-known to those who were here first; we were equally ignorant of your/their sapience). I kept track of the plump black-and-white-striped caterpillars that roamed your stems, searched for the jade and gold-beaded chrysalises hanging from your leaves. What a balm to know that after too long a wait, you once again fulfill your role as the host plant of monarch butterflies.

My queens, you rise above it all.

Excerpt from texts by the artist as part of the exhibition spot on