L’idylle improbable de la baleine et de l’ours blancs. Pour une Esthétique oxymorique: Van Gogh & Laura Owens

Résumé

This article examines the dialogue between Vincent van Gogh and Laura Owens through the exhibition at the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles. It develops the concept of an ‘oxymoronic aesthetics’ to describe the encounter between Van Gogh’s tragic, melancholic, and corporeal painting and Owens’s luminous, playful, and dreamlike universe. While Van Gogh’s works are traversed by tension between Eros and Thanatos and existential turmoil, Owens transforms his motifs into spaces of enchantment and wonder. Rather than imitating Van Gogh, Owens extends and reinterprets his imagery, opening it toward new sensory and imaginative possibilities.