Marinette Cueco
Marinette Cueco
Marinette Cueco has been developing a sculptural practice since the 1970s, with primary materials drawn from nature, whether vegetal or mineral. Having practiced weaving and tapestry since 1960, M. Cueco creates works ranging from monumental sculptures to more modest assemblages: the former, created in situ, are conceived as temporary, while the latter, despite their apparent fragility, turn out to be surprisingly durable. Her work, distant from an aesthetic that seeks to conquer wild spaces, fits into a culture where the relationship with nature is first considered as a form of collaboration, based on mutual respect: M. Cueco refuses to purchase her materials, preferring instead to gather them methodically from her garden, during long walks. Her forms are therefore dependent on the seasons, the scarcity or abundance of plants. Yet every plant captures her attention, from tree barks to vegetable leaves in the garden, not to mention weeds or the moss that proliferates. Similarly, the simplest pebbles or pieces of slate, the most peat-filled earth, do not deter her. She selects based on criteria (flexibility, weight, color, smell...) linked to her precise and fine knowledge of natural environments. On these various materials, she performs deliberately simple actions, which she attributes to peasant culture, where nothing is wasted and everything can serve a purpose: she ties, braids, or knits fine vegetal nets in which she wraps the pebbles gathered along paths. The slowness of certain processes matters to her: she, who compares herself to a hedgehog undergoing "hibernation" and succumbing to numbness, is interested in the image of the ball, the bundle, the bundle.
It is difficult to establish a chronology of M. Cueco's work as the series she undertakes challenge the idea of an end, of a categorical completion. For example, in 1990, she began a series of herbariums called Les Herbailles, herbariums made in circumstances, which will be published as artist books, a publication still ongoing. Each project is also extensively documented by detailed preparatory drawings, in which the names of each plant are placed next to indications identifying the collection sites. In her extreme attention to seasonal cycles and this intimacy with plants and minerals, she appears close to some of her contemporaries, such as Richard Long (born 1945) or herman de vries (born 1931). She has had numerous solo exhibitions in French institutions (Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and Château de Rochechouart in 1987, Centre d'Art Contemporain de Meymac in 1988 and 2006, Le Parvis Scène Nationale Tarbes-Pyrénées in Ibos in 1991...), and her work has been commented on by Gilbert Lascault, Pierre Bergounioux, and Itzhak Goldberg.
Camille Paulhan
© Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions, 2019
Marinette Cueco, born in Argentat, Corrèze, in 1934, passed away on October 19, 2023. She was the wife of the painter Henri Cueco. She lived and worked in the Paris region and in Corrèze.
Unlike most artists, Marinette Cueco does not buy the materials she uses from art suppliers. Nor does she manufacture them herself. For Marinette, first and foremost, is a gatherer. She roams the countryside, through the seasons and the places that become familiar to her, kept secret, where she knows what she will find: a grass, a broom or grey broom, a cat’s tail, a field bindweed. She picks, plants, and harvests the most varied plants, and these harvests have become the foundation of her work, developed since the 1970s.
“I call these works: interlacings; I work in two dimensions, using all techniques that involve holding textile fibers together: weaving, tying, braiding, knitting, interlacing, crocheting…” She applies these ancient techniques to unexpected materials, creating displacements of great poetic richness. Paradoxically, her material, grass, is extremely fragile and impossible to work with using these processes. It is precisely this handicap, generating constraints, that feeds the forms that Marinette Cueco invents.
When she begins, from 1978 onwards, to work with grasses, she makes lacy fabrics with random shapes, free and fragile objects. At the same time, she favors simple geometric shapes (squares, rectangles, triangles, spheres) that she reinterprets with ever-renewing creativity. With primitive gestures, she reconnects with the ancestral and feminine traditions of her native Corrèze, weaving, tying, knitting to write on the ground or in space works that are both magnificent, complex, and simple at the same time. She creates fullness and emptiness. Thus, she invites us to a profound meditation on the paradox between the incredible strength of these works and their seemingly fragile appearance.
When Marinette Cueco transforms a garden, she does not uproot the grass, nor does she cut it, but instead lets it grow. She respects the life of plants, working with them, shaping them. She braids, twists, and turns them into ephemeral sculptures, where the scent is sometimes as important as the form presented.
In 1986, she exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris. Using raw materials found in the countryside, Marinette Cueco composes works and site-specific installations in the calm of her studio.
Sculptures in spheres or braided balls, with oval, cocoon-like, or chrysalis forms, suggest a kind of birth in gestation: here too, the passage from one realm to another is hinted at, with possible metamorphoses.
Marinette Cueco’s work makes us reflect with Francis Ponge that "one could make a revolution in human feelings simply by paying attention to things, which would immediately say much more than what men have accustomed themselves to making them signify."
© Textile/Art
Expositions personnelles
2023
Le Nouveaux Printemps, musée des Abattoirs, Toulouse, France.
2022
Herbiers, bibliothèque, Saint-Ybard, France. Hypothèses végétales, Musée de l’hospice Saint Roch, Issoudun, France.
2021
Jardins silencieux, Prieuré de Salagon, France. L’Ordre des choses, LAAC, Dunkerque, France. Ardoises et Entrelacs, Galerie Univer / Colette Colla, Paris, France.
2020
Herbiers fantastiques, domaine de Chaumont sur Loire, France. Pierres, ardoises, entrelacs, Centre d’art contemporain de Châteauvert, France.
2019
Art Paris – sélection Camille Morineau et Herbailles, Paris, France.
Galerie Univer / Colette Colla, Paris, France
2017
Pelotes et entrelacs, Galerie Univer / Colette Colla, Paris, France.
2016
Galerie des petits carreaux, Saint-Briac, France.
2015
Couple à couple avec Henri Cueco, galerie Hervé Courtaigne, Paris, France.
2014
Entrelacs, Galerie Univer / Colette Colla, Paris, France.
2011
Les Herbailles de Marinette, bibliothèque des enfants de Faidherbe, Paris, France.
Domaine de Lescombes, Centre d’art contemporain d’Eysines, France.
2010
Herbiers de plantes tinctoriales, La Fabrique des savoirs, Elbeuf, France.
2009
Herbailles et Ardoises, musée de Gap, France. Herberies, exposition Cueco et Marinette, centre d’art André Malraux, Colmar, France.
2008
Le Jardin du docteur Gachet, Auvers-sur-Oise, France.
2007
Les Herbes de la Saint Jean, musée de l’Arsenal, Saint-Jean des Vignes, Soissons, France.
2006
Voyageurs Immobiles, Musée des Beaux Arts, Pau, France.
Herbiers, herbailles, librairie Nicaise, Paris, France.
2005
Gwemon, Warec, Alga, centre d’art plastique, Royan, France.
Toxiques et Héroïques, Maison des Arts, Bagneux, France. De Natura, Centre d’Art Contemporain, Meymac, France.
2004
Herbailles, Champs Libres, Château du Grand Jardin, Joinville, France.
Temple de Chauray, France.
2003
Ecritures, maison des Arts, Bagneux, France. Herberies, herbiolles, galerie municipale Julio Gonzalez, Arcueil, France.
Herbier, La Joie par les livres, Clamart, France. Sempervirens, la maison des arts, Bagneux, France.
2002
Herbiers, médiathèque de Bourganeuf, France. Herberies et jardins d’odeurs, Arte Sella, Borgo Valsugana, Italie.
Lieux sombres et humides – Herberies – Herbiolles, Vallery, France.
2001
Espace culturel St Jacques, St Quentin, France.
Centre culturel Olivier de Serres, Mirabel, France.
Espace Visitation, Musée de Romans, France.
2000
Herbier, EROA, collège A. Samain, Roubaix, France. Paroles de Plantes, espace théâtre J. Legendre, Compiègne, France. Herbiers pour l’exposition Archéologie du Paysage Limousin, Uzerche, France.
Erbailles, bibliothèque H. Vaysse, Bagnolet, France.
1999
Carré Saint Vincent, Orléans, France. Herbiolles, herbier, herberie, Musée Château, Cagnes-sur-Mer.
1998
Maison des Arts, Malakoff, France.
Casa, Prayssas, France.
1997
Ouvraisons, Centre culturel, Saint-Yrieix, France.
Galerie d’Art contemporain, Auvers-sur-Oise, France.
1994
Galerie ART’O, Aubervilliers, France.
Galerie Stella R., Paris, France.
Galerie Véronique Smagghe, Paris, France.
Lycée Aragon, Domerat, France.
1996
Bibliothèque Louis Aragon, Choisy-le-Roy, France.
1991
Ouvrages d’herbes, Parvis 2, Ibos - Tarbes, France. Hivernages, LARC, Centre d’action culturelle, Le Creusot, France.
1990
De la St Jean à la St Michel, Pays-Paysage, Uzerche, France.
1989
Centre Culturel du Barrois, Bar-le-Duc, France. Centre Culturel Français, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
Alliance française de Miraflorès, Lima, Pérou.
Alliance française de Trujillo, Pérou.
1988
Centre d’Art Contemporain, Abbaye St André, Meymac, France.
Halles d’Avranches, France.
1987
Musée d’Art Contemporain, Rochechouart, France.
Galerie de l’ancienne Poste, Calais, France.
1986
Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France.
Mysée des Enfants Filothèque D.M.C., Paris, France.
Musée de Lillehammer, Norvège.
1982
Centre d’Action Culturelle, Cergy-Pontoise, France.
Maison de la Culture d’Amiens, France.
Livres de Marinette Cueco
Fibres d’hiver, 1985. Herbe rouge, main verte, avec Marie-Odile BRIOT, éditions Jean-Michel Ponty, 1989.
De quelques graines, styles, pollens et poussières d’herbes, 1990.
Terres de voyages, 1993.
Terres de Corrèze : vers les Monédières, 1996.
Terres de Corrèze : vers les Causses, 1997.
Les Odorantes : petit herbier pour le nez, 1998.
Pétales de consolation, printemps, 1999.
Pétales de consolation, été 1999.
Pétales de consolation, automne 1999.
Pétales de consolation, hiver 2000.
Herbiolles, herbier commencé en 1990.
Sempervirens, 2001.
Rosa, 2002.
Herbe Princière, texte de Denise LE DANTEC, éditions François Janaud, 2002, quatre lithographies originales de Marinette CUECO, tirage atelier Franck Bordas.
Principaux catalogues et livres
Pierre Gaudibert, Gilbert Lascaux, Ouvrages d’herbes – Marinette Cueco, Centre Culturel de Cergy Pontoise, 1982.
Catherine Huber, Claude Duneton, Patrick Lamarck, Gilbert Lascault, Herbes, Musée d’Art moderne de la ville de Paris, Musée des Enfants, 1986.
Marinette Cueco, Centre de développement culturel, Galerie de l’ancienne poste, Calais, 1987.
Patrick Lamarque, Gérard-Georges Lemaire, Marinette Cueco, Exposition du Centre d’art contemporain Abbaye de Saint-André, Meymac (Corrèze) 1988, ACB Assocaition culturelle du Barrois, Bar-le-Duc (Meuse), 1989.
Marie-Odile Briot, Jardins d’entrelacs, Éditions AREA, 1990.
Marinette Cueco, Pierre Vannier, Hivernages, l’ARC Le Creusot, 1991.
Catherine Flohic, Marinette Cueco, Galerie Art’o, Aubervilliers, 1994.
Itzhak Goldberg, Evelyne Artaud, Marinette Cueco, Éditions du Cercle d’Art, 1998.
Lieux sombres et humides – Herberies – Herbiolles, Petit Cahier n°7, Service culturel, Centre d’art de l’Yonne, 2002.
Marinette Cueco – Le Jardin du Magnolia grandiflora, Parvis 2 – Ibos, Jardin Massey, Tarbes, 1991.
Marinette Cueco, Pierre Bergounioux, Marinette Cueco. Le Réel n’est plus comme avant, éditions Panama, 2009.
Sylvie Ollivier, Marinette Cueco – Art, végétal – La Nature autrement, Mémoire de master II arts plastiques et art contemporain (Parcours Esthétique, Pratique et Histoire de l’art contemporain), sous la direction de Paul-Louis Rinuy, septembre 2019.
Muriel Berthou Crestey, Un art amoureux de nature – Le Land Art et ses mutations, Ides Et Calendes, 2020.
Marie-Madeleine Massé, L’Art du fil dans la création contemporaine, coll. Alternatives, Paris, 2020, p.84.
Marinette Cueco. Herbiers fantastiques, Domaine de Chaumont sur Loire, Liénart, Paris, 2020.
Marinette Cueco. Pierres, ardoises, entrelacs, Centre d’art Châteauvert, Liénart, 2020. Danielle Molinari, Marinette Cueco : Herbes, Liénart, 2022. Françoise Clédat, Marinette Cueco, À fleurs de peau, éditions Tarabuste, 2023.
Pierre Bergounioux, Marinette Cueco, Ne se perd ni ne meurt, éditions Tarabuste, 2023.