ARGUMENT (VERSION ANGLAISE) n°14 - Page 1 - 14 Cover image in twoe : Jean-Luc Labre!e, De Materia 29, photographic print, printed on brushed aluminium, 60 x 60 cm, 2025 Cover image in 1re : Marina Mankarios, Tetris antique #3, plaster sculpture, 46.5 x 34 x 7 cm, 2023 Editorial Ancient and modern mythologies are the theme of this issue! Argument magazine presents its fourteenth issue, focusing on ancient and modern mythologies, an inexhaustible source of inspiration for artists. We are pleased to present ten visual artists, one author and two exhibition curators from eight countries and five continents: Hélène Barrier Dina Goldstein Fatima Golem Nagham Hodhaifa Jean-Luc Labrette Patrick McGrath Muñiz Marina Mankarios Marie Ménestrier Yosra Mojtahedi Emmanuel Reiatua Cuisinier Stefanos Rokos Clara Tournay Lin Xiang Xiong The Argument magazine project was born from the idea of bringing together works, readers and artists through interviews, and designing the whole thing as a collective exhibition with the artists at the centre of the discourse. You will not find any advertising here; this is a deliberate choice to maintain our independence. You can purchase the print edition on the magazine's website and digital versions on Cafeyn, PressReader, Readly, Scopalto, and Kono Magazine platforms. We are distributed in bookshops by Les Petits Éditeurs and listed with Electre and Dilicom. We want to create a direct link between the public, the works and the artist. It is the artists who matter above all else: They write the world with matter, They share their visions and dreams with us, Playing with shapes and colours. They radiate poetry, wisdom and emotion. We hope to see you every quarter with a new issue or special editions such as the one on Palestinian artists that we released in May 2025, which you can purchase at the bookshop of the Arab World Institute in Paris. I hope you enjoy reading it! François Beauxis-Aussalet Publishing Director Argument | 3 Argument Art and literary review The art journal that gives artists a voice 4 | Argument Issue 14 October 2025 Editorial commi!ee: Eduardo Pérez Viloria Rachel Hardouin Alexandre Ortiz Hervias Adeline Bailleux Axelle Delorme Fatima Gholem Emmanuelle Callerame Ramsés Luquis Ortega Kim Chi Pho François Beauxis Michèle Beauxis Contributors: Jennifer Lemoy: graphic designer Léa Rimoux: graphic designer Lucie Ayrault: graphic designer Eni Reves: graphic designer Maxine Courtabessis: graphic designer Karoliina Hujanen: graphic designer Claire Savouré: proofreader Audrey Boon: website Publishing director François Beauxis-Aussalet redaction@revue-argument.fr ISBN: 978-2-487929-14-2 ISSN: 2825-9319 print edition in French ISSN: 3075-7053 digital edition in French ISSN: 3003-2679 print edition in English ISSN: 3075-707X digital edition in English ISSN: 3075-7088 digital edition in Spanish Legal deposit date: 15 June 2022 Printer Pixartprinting S.p.A. Via 1 Maggio, 8 30020 Quarto d'Altino VE, Italy Publisher Association magazine Argument Artistic and literary publication Registered office: 1 bis, rue Gambe"a 64200 Biarritz Mythologies ancient and modern Hélène Barrier List of works Synopsis | 5 Summary Marina Mankarios Nagham Hodaifa Stefanos Rokos Yosra Mojtahedi Marie Ménestrier E. Reiatua Cuisinier Jean-Luc Labrette 06 20 48 80 96 104 118 132 158 38 Clara Tournay Patrick McGrath Muñíz Dina Goldstein Fatima Gholem Lin Xiang Xiong 138 70 148 6 | Argument → 1 Portrait of Marina Mankarios, Albert Khan Museum, 2025 Marina Mankarios Axelle Delorme Marina Mankarios, born in France in 1996, is a French-Egyptian sculptor living and working in Paris. A graduate of ENSAAMA−Olivier-de-Serres In art and design, she explores the notions of memory and forgetting, questioning our relationship with time through the artistic appropriation of ancient fragments. Marina Mankarios experiments with moulding techniques, using processes of collage, displacement and deformation specific to the literature of the absurd, and appropriates the visual vocabulary of ruins to create works that freeze time like a freeze frame, a pause before a seemingly imminent fall. Argument | 7 8 | Argument Marina Mankarios → 2 Vacuum Memory (details), vacuum-formed plaster sculpture, 20 x 15 x 7 cm, 2023 Argument | 9 Amidst the ruins and fragmented remains of a lost city, we press on. Amongst the ruined busts, suddenly, something catches our attention. A detail, an incongruity. Marina Mankarios transports us, as our epic journey unfolds, into the contemplation of a fragmented, reconstructed reality with surrealist overtones. An imaginary civilisation, composed entirely of fragments, unfolds before our eyes. It assembles and operates, multiplies, disturbs and unbalances matter, creating space for new narratives. Our perception, initially unsettled, adapts, becomes accustomed and discovers. Pure and smooth, its pieces are only so in appearance. Playing with hollows and solids, giving her sculptures gashes or large voids that amputate them, twisting or joining them together like pieces of an impossible puzzle, Marina Mankarios creates a sense of double meaning in our minds, influenced first by the careful and demanding forms she gives to her work, then deepened and nourished by the twists she imprints on them. She first captivates us by representing images that seem familiar and comfortable, drawn from our memory and culture, and then feeds us with her interpretation of them, which is resolutely contemporary and grounded. Here, moulding is far from being a single object of study; it is used as a tool and a medium. With their dazzling whiteness and masterful lines and shapes, Marina Mankarios' works challenge us. Aesthetic canons engraved in marble, grandiose and immutable ancient statuary, a repertoire of classical sculpture and architecture... All these initial considerations are slowly dissolved in a game of deception that Marina Mankarios subtly sets up. A step aside, which makes us smile and then grasp the hidden intention between the meanders of materials. Marina Mankarios imitates in order to enrich and increase our attention to detail so that we can grasp the entirety of what she is telling us. Like an archaeologist, she unveils pieces before our eyes which, by unearthing references from the past and working on them to transform them, ultimately evoke our own era, its challenges and its history. She takes us to see what lies beyond the mirror, on the other side of the works, in those hollows and voids, the invisible narrative they contain and whisper in our ears. Marina Mankarios thus questions us about our methods of conservation, of protecting memory, of transmitting heritage, of the thorny subject of forgetting, of archiving and of loss through looting, trafficking and destruction. She emphasises the fragility of objects, but also their power, as they endure throughout history and in power games. She works to restore her casts to their role as guardians and receptacles, to remember and offer our civilisation solid foundations that are neither smoke nor mirrors. 10 | Argument Marina Mankarios What is your background, the path that led you to develop your current approach? I began my artistic journey by studying different practices when I was younger. I first trained in classical music and theatre for many years before my baccalaureate. Then I started drawing and experimenting with several disciplines when I enrolled in an "applied arts refresher" course. That's when I decided to focus on product design. I enrolled at the Olivier-de-Serres school, but ultimately, this training wasn't right for me because the approach to creation was very pragmatic. So I turned my attention back to the arts and crafts, also at Olivier-de-Serres. During this course, I completed internships in statue moulding workshops, which served as the starting point for the design of my final year project, which I completed to obtain my degree. I called this project "Moulding is not copying", which led to my current work. Sculpture therefore came quite late in my career, as I progressed through my internships, discovering plaster, silicone, etc., and began to master these tools. ↓ 3 Kôm Ombo, plaster sculpture, 150 x 150 x 240 cm, 2025 → 4 Ancient Tetris #3, plaster sculpture, 46.5 x 34 x 7 cm, 2023 Argument | 11
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