Djabril Boukhenaïssi, a young painter with Victor Hugo

It is Djabril Boukhenaïssi's turn to undergo an exercise that has become, for nearly twenty years, a ritual for living artists: exhibiting in a museum of ancient or modern art and comparing his works with those of glorious - or less glorious - ancestors. Boukhenaïssi passed the test earlier than most artists, having been born in 1993 , but, in a short time, he gained international recognition, which earned him this invitation. The place that welcomes him is not the easiest to occupy, because it permanently houses a rather impressive and cumbersome master: Victor Hugo. It is in the latter's house, Place des Vosges therefore, that the young painter slips into.

This is no intruder: his passion for poetry is well known. Until now, it was mainly German poetry, the Hymns to the Night by Novalis, and the Poems to the Night by Rainer Maria Rilke. But Hugo is also a poet of the night, one of whose collections is called Rays and Shadows , and whose sleeping Boaz was once learned by heart: "All rested in Ur and in Jerimadth; / The stars enameled the deep and dark sky."

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