from October 7 to December 14, 2025**_
In Aventure de lignes, a poem inspired by a painting by Paul Klee and featured in the second edition of "Passages" (1963), Henri Michaux describes the trajectory and "melody" of composite lines forming on canvas. Their beauty lies, he says, in the transitory, ephemeral aspect, in the "passage" revealed by movement, constituting "a new kind of architecture only to be filmed".
Today, Une aventure de lignes at the Villa Cavrois celebrates the line in all its multiple forms, inviting for the first time masterpieces from the Frac Picardie collection to take over this site inhabited by past, present and future memories. Une aventure de lignes is an invitation to wander through the Villa Cavrois, discovering the artistic presences that underline Mallet-Stevens's design. Conceptual, minimalist, dreamlike and poetic lines will be discussed in this conversation between the drawings of artists from different generations and backgrounds, and the emblematic architectural style of Robert Mallet-Stevens. "As soon as I write, I begin to invent", Henri Michaux liked to say. This total work of art, to which Robert Mallet-Stevens dedicated himself, is a formidable showcase for exceptional works that act as imaginary and contemporary echoes of this architectural approach, a veritable musical score in which the smallest detail serves as a manifesto. From line to line, from space to space, from punctuation to punctuation, it is the spirit of the place that this exhibition celebrates today as part of lille3000.
In Aventure de lignes, a poem inspired by a painting by Paul Klee and featured in the second edition of "Passages" (1963), Henri Michaux describes the trajectory and "melody" of composite lines forming on canvas. Their beauty lies, he says, in the transitory, ephemeral aspect, in the "passage" revealed by movement, constituting "a new kind of architecture only to be filmed".
Today, Une aventure de lignes at the Villa Cavrois celebrates the line in all its multiple forms, inviting for the first time masterpieces from the Frac Picardie collection to take over this site inhabited by past, present and future memories. Une aventure de lignes is an invitation to wander through the Villa Cavrois, discovering the artistic presences that underline Mallet-Stevens's design. Conceptual, minimalist, dreamlike and poetic lines will be discussed in this conversation between the drawings of artists from different generations and backgrounds, and the emblematic architectural style of Robert Mallet-Stevens. "As soon as I write, I begin to invent", Henri Michaux liked to say. This total work of art, to which Robert Mallet-Stevens dedicated himself, is a formidable showcase for exceptional works that act as imaginary and contemporary echoes of this architectural approach, a veritable musical score in which the smallest detail serves as a manifesto. From line to line, from space to space, from punctuation to punctuation, it is the spirit of the place that this exhibition celebrates today as part of lille3000.
