Michel Couturier

Centrale presents the exhibition Michel Couturier – la friche la galaxie (09.10.2025 > 22.02.2026).

At a time when cities and suburban areas are the focus of new policies, Michel Couturier’s images appear both surprising and familiar. They feature the elements that populate today’s urban landscapes: road signs, motorway lights, surveillance cameras, and building cranes slicing through the sky.

We discover in them the poetry of improbable spaces—their fragmented architecture, their horizons crossed by flocks of birds. Associated with these landscapes, with these still and moving images, are the words of Homer, Pavese, and Couturier himself. Evoked, too, are the ancient myths that inhabit these places—chosen, traversed, and recorded by the artist.

In these places, there is a joyful sparkle—here, the light on the sea; there, the movement of the river; here again, the gold leaf that transforms a banal object into a jewel.

Michel Couturier’s exhibition at Centrale, through his videos and drawings, celebrates the poetry that lies before our eyes—if only we take the time to look.