Katia Bourdarel. L’éternité d’un instant

L’éternité d’un instant, Paris, Éditions Lord Byron, 2025

1st edition
Edition of 425 copies numbered from 1 to 425
Hardcover, 23 x 27,5 cm, 304 pages
French English edition
Translated in English by Tineke Aarts and Bella Adams
ISBN : 978-2-491901-93-6

L'éternité d'un instant is the first monograph to retrace the last twenty years of Katia Bourdarel's career and work.

”In her case, the act of painting resembles a silent rebellion against the tyranny of short time, against our addiction to this form of instantaneity that deprives us of the pleasure of relief. Beyond the theme of metamorphosis alone, the cornerstone of Katia Bourdarel's work, her recourse to the myth of Daphne, as expressed in A Midsummer Night's Dream, can in my view be understood as a metaphor for this gentle struggle. To escape Apollo's stalking, to become a tree, is also to escape the pressure of the world.” (Excerpt from a text by Numa Hambursin)

Katia Bourdarel was born in Marseille in 1970. She lives and works in Paris and the Quercy region. A graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Paris in Art and Space, Katia Bourdarel soon began collaborating with Galerie Roger Pailhas, which exhibited her work at numerous national and international fairs. Since 2024, her work has been represented by Galerie Renard-Hacker in Lille, and since 2014 by Galerie Aeroplastics in Brussels. From painting to video installation and sculpture, she explores and hijacks tales and myths through the prism of her personal history, incorporating references to popular culture.

Amélie Adamo is an author, art historian and independent curator. With a degree in Contemporary Art History, she wrote her doctoral thesis on figurations in France in the 1980s. Since 2008, she has contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs and specialized magazines, including L'Œil and Le Journal des Arts. She curated the exhibitions “Immortelle” at Mo.Co.(2023), and “Luxe Calme et Volupté” at Centre d'Art La Malmaison (2025).

Julie Chaizemartin, journalist and art critic, is a graduate of the École du Louvre and Paris I Sorbonne in Art History and Law. A regular contributor to Transfuge, Artpress and Le Quotidien de l'Art, she also writes for exhibition catalogs and monographs. She has also been a columnist for Le Quotidien du Pharmacien for the past 15 years, and is the founder of Art District Radio, a web radio station devoted to art and jazz.

Pierre-Yves Desaive is curator of contemporary art at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. President of the Belgian section of AICA from 2009 to 2012 and member of ICOM, he regularly publishes on contemporary art and media arts in specialized journals and catalogs. He also teaches art news at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Visuels (ENSAV - La Cambre, Brussels).

After studying literature and cultural heritage law, Numa Hambursin opened his first contemporary art gallery at the age of 23. In 2010, he was appointed head of programming at Carré Sainte-Anne in Montpellier, then artistic director of Espace Dominique Bagouet in 2012. In 2018, he takes over as director of the Cannes Modern and Contemporary Art Center before returning to Montpellier in 2021 to head the Mo.Co. (Montpellier Contemporain).

Leïla Jarbouai is chief curator in charge of the painting and graphic arts collections at the Musée d'Orsay. She has curated some fifteen exhibitions, including “Frida Kahlo / Diego Rivera” (2013), “Degas Danse Dessin” (2019), “Léon Spilliaert” (2020), “Rosa Bonheur” (2022) and “Les Arpenteurs de rêves” (2022). She regularly publishes in exhibition catalogs, monographs and specialist journals.

Karine Lambert is agrégée and doctor in History. She is a lecturer at the Université Côte d'Azur and a researcher in the Telemme laboratory at the Maison Méditerranéenne des Sciences de l'Homme in Aix-en-Provence, where she coordinates the 4. 15 Genre dans l'espace euro-méditerranéen (GEEM) workshop.

Thomas Lévy-Lasne is a painter. He was a Villa Médicis resident in 2018-19. He co-organized a symposium on painting at the Collège de France in 2014. He is curating the exhibition “Les apparences” in 2021, and is creating an eponymous Twitch/YouTube channel to interview painters.

Anne Malherbe is an art historian (ENS alumna and PhD). She works as an independent curator and art critic (member of AICA). Her doctorate focused on post-war matiériste painting in Paris, and she has been closely following the evolution of contemporary painting for almost twenty years.