This exhibition has to be linked to the latest part of Lancri’s productions, entitled the  Cycle de Cheval à vélo, translated (and explained) below. In a fictional way, this Cycle evokes the Facteur Cheval, an actual early twentieth-century French rural mailman  (facteur means mail carrier in French), very well-known for the fanciful architecture of the house he built for himself and much beloved of the French surrealists poets.

Therefore, if the works here on display obviously deal with a famous image of Marilyn Monroe, they revolve around a series of puns involving the English word LOVE in relation to the French word VELO, a familiar term for bicycle, additionally inspired by Ferdinand Cheval, who delivered the mail by bicycle. In this respect, the Facteur Cheval serves as a figure (and his bike as a vehicle) for desire and for art. (The name Cheval, French for horse, permits another set of puns, pure and impure.) Lancri, in his work, and not without humour, asks us to consider whether the French term VELO might not be haunted by LOVE in much the same way as the conscious mind is haunted by the unconscious; whether, indeed, as he peddles his route upon his VELO, the Facteur Cheval might not in fact be himself ridden by LOVE as well. When the Facteur Cheval takes his bike out for a spin, is it not LOVE, indeed, who pumps the pedals ? The unique ambition of the present exhibition, centered as it is on Marilyn, on her heart (and, of course, on art) is to raise this question in the glow and glare of its colors.

* On the Cycle de Cheval à vélo, one might