Tableaux kuna - les molas, un art d'amerique: - EN HOMMAGE AUX FEMMES KUNA (ARTHAUD

In the 1970s, the anthropologist Michel Perrin, who was one of the assistants of Claude Levi-Strauss discovered in Panama molas, traditional corsages decorated on the front and back patterns sewn in "applied", a technique that akin to patchwork and evokes the stained glass. It's a shock. Worn by Kuna women, Indian community living on the San Blas Islands off the coast Caribbean side, this garment is of such splendor and such a rich iconography that the ethnologist decided to devote his research to this art hitherto considered a "women's" craft. This will be promoted three decades, becoming one of the leading experts of this practice invented in the nineteenth century when the colonial requires Indian - who went topless -they are dressed. Over generations, the Kuna tell with needles and scissors - they do not draw but directly cut hand motifs lifted on canvas - scenes from Indian mythology (marine and terrestrial animals has a prominent place), but also stories of everyday life (birth, disease, drowning). The two hundred exhibits in Menton are from the collection of Michel Perrin. They have all been laid, they are sometimes worn and discolored by time. Disconnected from their original bodice, exposed flat, these beautiful pieces become real textile paintings whose labyrinthine patterns fascinate. Sometimes geometric, sometimes serpentine, they evoke the works of Keith Haring, Paul Klee or Vasarely. Unsigned, those women artists kuna simply carry the name of their community.