Mesnil-le-Roi
Mesnil-le-Roi
Jonathan Price, Mesnil-le-Roi, 2018, Giclée print, 30”x20” (76 x 51 cm)
A map, at first, seems innocent. We imagine a correspondence between these lines and the road in front of us. We figure that the color coding must mean something, though we do not have the legend. How clear it all seems.
But once we dig into the information, the precision disintegrates. In the spine of the Michelin Atlas Routier, physical space leaps over the spiral binding, but where are we, at that moment?
To refine the original, I apply bleach to wipe out the colors, while preserving the black lines. I enlarge a section, and it appears in front of me, on the screen, a crazy quilt of lines.
Now I am inside the computer, pointing to the exact spot, or perhaps the original.
I am being branded by the map.
The name on the map is Mesnil-le-Roi, but the name on the image is mine, Price.
The commune of Mesnil-le-Roi stretches four kilometers along the left bank of the Seine downstream from Paris, and because there is a real risk of flooding, you are not allowed to build near the water. A quarter of the land is reserved for forest, and another quarter of the land is used for farming; the rest of the commune is fairly densely populated.
The ground here is rocky, and in the Roman period, builders came here in search of stones for roadways, walls, and homes.
One of the Romans built a small estate, called a mansionilis, that is, a little mansion. Over the years, that word got corrupted into Mesnil. People moved into the area to get work digging out stone in the open-faced quarry.
Francois the First, King of France from 1515 to 1547, had a chateau nearby, at which point the commune added “le roi” to its name. During the Revolution, though, the town’s name got revised to Mesnil-Carrières, that is, Mesnil the Quarry.
After the Revolution, the name reverted to the royal, and inhabitants expanded the mine underneath the town, creating tunnels that were later used as a bomb shelter for NATO, and a mushroom farm.
I point to all that. It's history, or at least folklore for the people who live in the commune today. For us, it is invisible. The map retains the name, the shape of the roads, the curve of the river, but until I enter from the left, there are no people visible, waving their hands from down below.
In a map we sometimes feel like passengers in a hot-air balloon. If we see people, they are tiny. But the map obliterates even those details. I re-insert humanity with my selfie, poking up through the calligraphy of the enlarged drawing in the spiral-bound road atlas. Have I improved the map, or just made it into a mess? With Mesnil-le-Roi, I feel most like the miners quarrying rock from underneath the surface.
For more on this series, see our book, Remapping Paris:
For Kindle, Tablet, or Phone:
To follow blog posts about the series, see our blog:
https://museumzero.blogspot.com/2019/01/remapping-paris-03-mesnil-le-roi.html
Our Process
Your picture gets our careful, individual attention.
We print it on a baryta-coated fiber-based satin paper with excellent archival properties, enhanced definition, and extended tonal range. Then we laminate the print to preserve the image against fingerprints and dust. Overall, our printing process takes approximately two weeks.
We then ship the print to you in a solid mailing tube, using U.S. Priority Mail, insured for the full value. We send you an email with the tracking number. Shipping usually takes 2 business days.
To get in touch, email us at jonathanreeveprice at mac.com
For more on this series, see our book, Remapping Paris:
For blog posts on this series, see Remapping Paris: Mesnil-le-Roi.
https://museumzero.blogspot.com/2019/01/remapping-paris-03-mesnil-le-roi.html