Curator Barbara Polla wonders "What do you imprison in a gallery? Most of the time we put what we can't see. Display what we can't show elsewhere. Sometimes it is the world, life, street that is shown. Here, it is prison itself. Who is the public enemy? Is it the one who deserve the death sentence; the one we are often at a loss to know what to do with. Who is the public enemy, in France, in Norway, in United-States? Why do we imprison private enemies, even friends, birds? What's the meaning for a prison, if there is a meaning at all?" The Magda Danysz gallery invites Barbara Polla as a co-curator to the «Public Enemy» exhibition, a group show aiming at understanding who is 'the public enemy' today through the questions of destruction, confinement or act of vandalism.

"Another question inspired us too as we worked on this project. What is the place for creativity in prison? How does one survive in prison? As British artist Sarah LUCA, puts it: in prison the only freedom is freedom of imagination, so I thought let's see what they are doing with this freedom there…" Barbara Polla adds.

For Mat COLLISHAW the question of confinement is always present. From his beginnings, with the Bird-Song cycle, he put birds in a cage, he took away not only their freedom to fly but also to sing. In 2010, he focused his photo series on the death row prisoners' last meal. Jean-Michel PANCIN chose prison as the subject of his work. The Avignon actual prison in France became the object of his artistic work. Jackie SUMELL created works in collaboration with Herman Joshua Wallace locked up in solitary confinement for now 38 years in Louisiana. This work answers to the simple question " what kind of house a man who lived in a 6x9m box for more than 30 years can dream about? " VHILS (aka Alexandre FARTO) on his side shows works made of destruction of walls with a jackhammer. The destruction is not an act of vandalism but he tries, by this technique, to redraw the urban archaeology. Nonetheless this act makes him, very often, considered as the "public enemy".

Artists

Mat Collishaw, Zhang Dali, Mounir Fatmi, Eric Hussenot, Maleonn, Joanna Malinowska, Luc Mattenberger, Jean-Michel Pancin, Jackie Sumell, Vhils