LIBERTÉ TOUJOURS (AKA Modern Art: It’s not done)
Liberté Toujours (AKA Modern Art: It’s not done)
When Malevich hung his black square in the Suprematist exhibition in 1915 and created Modernism, did he consider himself a modernist? Why did he hang his painting where Russian families would hang their icons? Did that put him closer to an orthodox God or was it just a declaration of the supremacy of pure artistic feeling?
When Cezanne broke up the Provence landscape into cubes that would create Cubism and later make Picasso move closer to the Montagne Sainte Victoire to be buried there, did he know the greatest artist of the 20th century would want to lie in his wake at the foothills of his modest landscapes?
When Mondrian moved to New York at the end of his life and perceived the complex vibrant city as a square of geometric shapes, did he know that New York would become the birthplace of Abstract Expressionism?
We don’t have any answers to these questions. But we think about them. We think about what a modern artist is, what modern art is today. And like in the Socratic Method, the questions go on.
Questions questions, questions. As Euripides said ‘Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing’. Take Courage.
– Martha Parsey. August 2026.
Martha Parsey, Pascal Rousson and Cedric Christie exhibit widely individually in the UK, Europe and the US and have collaborated as artists and curators on a number of exhibitions internationally.
Upcoming US Premiere
BACON’S HISTORIES: Study for a Portrait has been selected to be screened at the Fine Arts Film Festival at Venice Institute of Contemporary Arts , California. Screening times to be announced.
European Premiere at Cannes International Film Week
We are delighted to announce the upcoming European premiere of BACON’S HISTORIES: Study for a Portrait. The film has been selected and nominated by the CANNES INTERNATIONAL FILM WEEK and will be screened between May 11th- 31st May. The film can be streamed online here
London Premiere of BACON’S HISTORIES: Study for a Portrait @ All is Joy London
All is Joy, 75 Dean Street London Soho 28th February 7pm. Entrance free.
MPHQ Pictures and All is Joy London present the first cinema screening of Martha Parsey’s motion picture artwork BACON’S HISTORIES: Study for a Portrait in London. The film explores the influence of the Greeks and Egyptians on Bacon’s oeuvre and brings together both archive footage and unpublished recordings of Francis Bacon in interview with David Sylvester as well as interviews with his most frequently painted female subject Henrietta Moraes.
To coincide with London’s LGBTQ+ History Month the film explores a new feminist reading of Bacon’s work and a re-evaluation of Francis Bacon’s standing as a homosexual artist in the 1950s, emerging as a formidable force long before homosexuality was decriminalised in England.
50 minutes. Shot on location in Greece, London, Paris, Spain, Egypt, South Africa and Germany. In English, French, Greek and Russian with English subtitles.
A cinematic artwork in 8-parts. Written and directed by Martha Parsey. Produced by MPHQ Pictures.