Xavier Mazzarol

In his new painting series Asperges, Xavier Mazzarol revisits the unique story between painter Édouard Manet and collector Charles Ephrussi. In 1880, Ephrussi commissioned a still life from Manet, La botte d'asperges for 800 francs but ultimately paid 1,000 francs as a gesture of generosity. In response, Manet sent a second, smaller canvas with a single asparagus, accompanied by the note: "One was missing from your bunch."

In Asperges, Mazzarol creates 25 large-scale oil paintings of vertically standing asparagus, mirroring the exact number in La botte d'asperges by Manet, shifting the focus from the collective bunch to newly revealed singularities. 

This individualization also draws inspiration from Georges Bataille's analysis, which observes a reversal in Manet's work: "Manet, in painting still lifes, gave them an intense life, while his portraits sometimes appeared as inanimate as objects."