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Sophie Ristelhueber, “Train Zug Treno Tren. Voyages imaginaires”

The present show invites us to discover how artists tackled the train as motif in order to meet the challenge of reproducing a world in constant transformation. The railroad is inseparable from the ideology of progress in the Industrial Age. It heightens our perceptual experiences of universal dynamism as well as our emotions. It stimulates the imagination, generates strange associations, suggests odd inappropriate situations. The closed, even claustrophobic setting of the railcar fosters dark fantasies, with locomotives that reveal their erotic and poetic potential, stations suffused with mystery and solitude, a toy bringing back childhood… The train offers an endless invitation to imaginary journeys.