Dorian Gaudin focuses on the interplay of correspondences between the organic, psychical, and material worlds. Combining performance, sculpture and cinema, his oeuvre moves back and forth between automation and living systems. He mobilizes, dislocates, and mechanizes in an amalgamation of genres: absurdist theater, science fiction cinema, burlesque and Minimalism. In his exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo machines and social rituals, visual illusion and physical presence set in motion a mechanism which is also that of the emotions. Revealing the capacity of objects to generate narrative and elicit our emotional and intellectual involvement, his works remind us of the way fetishization of objects and technology governs our relationship with the world.
Book Contents
- "Incomparable Theatre": The Splendid Ambiguity of Dorian Gaudin's Machines" an essay by Kate Sutton
- "The Mechanism of the Emotions": interview between Dorian Gaudin and Julien Fronsacq
About the authors
- Kate Sutton is a writer currently based in Zagreb. In addition to writing articles and reviews for magazines including Artforum, Bidoun, Frieze, Ibraaz, and LEAP, Sutton is a regular contributor to Artforum.com. In 2013, she was recognized with an Art Writers Grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation.
- Julien Fronsacq is a curator at the Palais de Tokyo. He curated Dorian Gaudin's solo show.
A book published on the occasion of Dorian Gaudin's solo show at the Palais de Tokyo, 03.02 - 08.05 2017
Angelica Mesiti has been developing research into methods of communication, beyond speech or writing, to create new languages based on existing systems. In her video installations, she is interested in questions of translation of various cultural phenomena, through sound, music, or the body, spontaneous or choreographed gestures. The artist highlights, with sensitivity and delicacy, the grace and inventiveness of everyday life, while underlining the social and political outreach of music and performance.
Book contents:
- "Perhaps There Are More Things That Unite Us Than Separate Us," interview between Angelica Mesiti and Daria de Beauvais.
- "What Bodies Say," by Mathilde Roman.
About the authors:
- Daria de Beauvais is Senior Curator at the Palais de Tokyo. She curated Angelica Mesiti's solo show.
- Mathilde Roman is an art critic, curator and teacher.
Book published on the occasion of Angelica Mesiti's solo show at the Palais de Tokyo, 20.02 - 12.05.2019
In their works, mingling colours, light, mass and illusions, Florian and Michael Quistrebert play back the main motifs of modern art, while perverting them, through a particular approach to matter. At the Palais de Tokyo, they are deploying a vast optical theatre in which experience of their paintings and videos is disturbed by the glittering and internal motions of objects. The Quistrebert brothers' ambiguous pieces evoke the impossibility of grasping a painting. Their pictures are never what they show or, rather, never stabilize themselves around their subjects. The artists explore perception by handling it in various ways, which can be intellectual, optical, symbolic or else occult.
Book contents
- "Trance, Meditation, Madness": An essay by Khairudin Hori, cocurator of Florian & Michael Quistrebert's solo show at the Palais de Tokyo.
- "Turbulent Infinities": An essay by Hugo Vitrani, cocurator of Florian & Michael Quistrebert's solo show at the Palais de Tokyo.
- "The Substance of Painting is Light": A conversation between Florian & Michael Quistrebert and Mara Hoberman.
- Notes on a selection of the artists's works.
About the authors:
- Khairuddin Hori is the deputy director of artistic programmes at the Palais de Tokyo.
- Hugo Vitrani contributes to Mediapart and Beaux-Arts Magazine. He is the curator of the Palais de Tokyo's urban art programme.
- Mara Hoberman is a freelance curator and a writer.
Book published on the occasion of Florian & Michael Quistrebert's solo exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo, "The Light of the Light," 19.02 - 16.05 2016
Céleste Boursier-Mougenot produces systems from everyday situations and objects, as well as devices, of which he then extracts their musical and sound potential. In this way, the artist reconfigures both the rhythmic and melodic possibilities of his materials, which he uses to generate sonic forms that he describes as being "living." Based on a close relationship with the architectural and spatial nature of the exhibition space, each system creates a framework favoring a multi-sensorial experience for the visitor. In 2015, Céleste Boursier-Mougenot is representing France at the 56th Contemporary Art Biennial in Venice. For the Palais de Tokyo, he has conceived a lakeside landscape, leading visitors into a tactile, visual and sonic experience, thus changing their perception of the space. Visitors are drawn into a flow of images, creating doors leading into a hallucinatory journey.
Book contents
- "Zombie Choreography": Céleste Boursier-Mougenot in conversation with Daria de Beauvais, curator of Céleste Boursier-Mougenot's exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo
- "Prepared universe": an essay by Frédérique Aït-Touati
- Notes on a selection of the artist's works
About the authors
- Frédérique Aït-Touati is a stage director and researcher. She stages performances and plays that combine sciences, arts, and politics. She has published several studies on the relations between the arts and the sciences.
- Daria de Beauvais is a curator at the Palais de Tokyo.
Published on the occasion of Céleste Boursier-Mougenot's solo exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo, "acquaalta," 24.06 2015 - 13.09 2015
Abraham Poincheval is an insatiable explorer. Whether by crossing the Alps while pushing a capsule he used as his shelter, or by enclosing himself for a week in a rock, his-itinerant or static-expeditions require total physical commitment. The inhabitable sculptures which the artist conceives are laboratories allowing him to experience time, enclosure or immobility. They are the envelope that hosts the performer, an object that disturbs the landscape, and which exists through word of mouth. Abraham Poincheval's two new performances at the Palais de Tokyo lead him to experience the temporalities of the animal and the mineral kingdoms.
Book Contents
- "Abraham Poincheval, Humanity in Suspension" an essay by Thomas Schlesser
- "Living in the Heart of Things": interview between Abraham Poincheval and Adélaïde Blanc
About the authors
- Thomas Schlesser is the director of the Fondation Hartung-Bergman (Antibes) and he teaches at the École Polytechnique (Palaiseau). He is the author of L'Univers sans l'homme - les arts contre l'anthropocentrisme (1755-2016) (Paris: Hazan, 2016).
- Adélaïde Blanc is the coordinator of the artistic department at the Palais de Tokyo. She curated Abraham Poincheval's solo show.
A book published on the occasion of Abraham Poincheval's solo show at the Palais de Tokyo, 03.02 - 08.05 2017
With each piece, Patrick Neu turns traditional technique on its head and embarks on new experiments, which he extends for as long as required. The artist works with materials not often found in the art world: bees' wings, lampblack on glass, crystal, wax, blocks of Chinese ink, butterfly wings, sloughed snakeskin, eggshells, charred paper, etc. For 30 years, Patrick Neu has been developing his art discreetly. The works selected for his exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo are a nod towards this perilous dialogue with the materials and the memory of the world. Daring decisions, the adventure of thought, an insistence on duration and a dialogue with history are all ingredients in the artist's researches into memory and forgetting processes, the macabre blooming of flowers and the endurance of ancient images.
Book contents
- "Paying close attention to things": Patrick Neu in conversation with Jean de Loisy
- "Even as the petals fade and fall to the ground, the scent hovers there in the memory": an essay by Katell Jaffrès, curator of Patrick Neu's exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo
- Notes on a selection of the artist's works.
About the authors
- Katell Jaffrès is a curator at the Palais de Tokyo.
Published on the occasion of Patrick Neu's solo exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo, 24.06 2015 - 13.09 2015
Generous and full of humour, the work of Laure Prouvost examines the relationships between language, image and perception, placing the visitors in situations of doubt and incomprehension, but also a wonder which is both intellectual and sensorial. These situations become immersive installations, inviting escapism, in a dialogue between films, sculptures, paintings, tapestries, performances. Her exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo, "Ring, Sing and Drink for Trespassing", operates as an ode to diagonal lines, the transcending of limits and the joy of slipping over a fence to discover a wasteland or, a now-abandoned garden.
Book Contents
- "Little Bees Behind": interview between Laure Prouvost and Daria de Beauvais.
- "Laure Prouvost: Leaking Language", by Karen Archey.
- "Organs Without a Body", by Emanuele Coccia.
About the authors
- Daria de Beauvais is a curator at the Palais de Tokyo. She curated Laure Prouvost's solo show.
- Karen Archey is Curator of Contemporary Art, Time-based Media at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
- Emanuele Coccia is a lecturer at EHESS (Paris). He is the author of Sensible Life (2016), and Goods: Advertising, Urban Space and the Moral Law of the Image (2018). Forthcoming in English: The Life of Plants. A Metaphysics of Mixture. With Giorgio Agamben, he has edited an extensive anthology covering angels in Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Angeli. Giudaismo, Cristianesimo, Islam (2009).
A book published on the occasion of Laure Prouvost's solo show at the Palais de Tokyo, 22.06 - 09.09.2018
Mika Rottenberg's practice combines video, installations, drawings and sculptures. Many of her works portray absurd assembly-line situations in which work is often being carried out by women whose outsized, far from conventionally beautiful bodies are called into play both as tools and raw materials. Offering captivating narratives in which whimsicality and wit merge with weirdness, and reality morphs into fiction, Rottenberg's films are presented in the context of immersive installations that plunge the viewer into their world-a world beyond the screen-in a blurring of the borders between the imagined and the real.
Book Contents
- "Down the Rabbit Hole or Through the Looking Glass?": interview between Mika Rottenberg and Daria de Beauvais.
- "Breaking the Bubble: Mika Rottenberg's Industrial Attractions": an essay by Amy Herzog.
About the authors
- Daria de Beauvais is a curator at the Palais de Tokyo. She curated Mika Rottenberg's solo show.
- Amy Herzog is a media historian. She is Associate Professor of Media Studies at Queens College and Coordinator of the Film Studies Program at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is the author of Dreams of Difference, Songs of the Same: The Musical Moment in Film (2010) and co-editor, with Carol Vernallis and John Richardson, of The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Image in Digital Media (2013).
A book published on the occasion of Mika Rottenberg's solo show at the Palais de Tokyo, 23.06 - 11.09 2016
Julien Creuzet is an artist, videographer, performer and poet. He links forgotten, minority histories and imaginary representations of distant places with the social realities of the here and now. His exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo, which visit is rhythmed by a soundtrack composed specifically for it, takes the form of an immersive environment akin to a large public space suffused with the permanent state of tension that characterizes our era. It presents a multiplicity of different works and offers an array of disjointed narratives. Preferring anachronism to the linearity of established stories, Creuzet thus invokes poetry and politics to unfold a mobile imaginary that brings together different temporalities and geographies.
Book contents
- "An Interview or Not," interview between Julien Creuzet and Yoann Gourmel
- "Flashing Light-Elegy," by Eva Barois De Caevel and Dorothée Dupuis.
About the authors
- Eva Barois De Caevel is an independent curator. She is in charge of publications at RAW Material Company-Center for Art Knowledge and Society (Dakar).
- Dorothée Dupuis is an independent curator, art critic and publisher. She is the founder and editor in chief of the magazine Terremoto.mx.
- Yoann Gourmel is a curator at the Palais de Tokyo. He curated Julien Creuzet's solo show.
A book published on the occasion of Julien Creuzet's solo show at the Palais de Tokyo, 20.02 - 12.05.2019
Myths, fantasies and speculations lie at the heart of Marguerite Humeau's work. Always treading the line between research and fiction, her projects result from in-depth investigations and collaborations with specialists and scientists. At the Palais de Tokyo and Nottingham Contemporary, Humeau is offering a series of unique physical and sensory experiences. Her exhibition FOXP2 is named for the gene whose mutation enabled the arrival of articulate language at the source of our humanity. Here the artist is re-enacting the origins of life and the development of conscious life forms. Imagining a world where giant elephants dominate the planet, Humeau has artificially designed creatures endowed with emotions and consciousness.
Book Contents
- A conversation between Marguerite Humeau and Bernard Buigues.
- A conversation between Marguerite Humeau and Carl Safina.
- "Who Knows?": an essay by Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel, curator of Marguerite Humeau's solo exhibition.
About the authors
- Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel is a curator at the Palais de Tokyo.
- Bernard Buigues is a French explorer. He has organized numerous expeditions to the North Pole and Siberia. He is the founder of Mammuthus, a scientific program aimed at -constructing a record of paleobiodiversity through the collection and preservation of fossils throughout the Siberian Arctic. He defines himself as "a mammoth hunter without weapon."
- Carl Safina is the Endowed Professor for Nature and Humanity at Stony Brook University (NY), where he co-chairs the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and runs the not-for-profit Safina Center. His books include Beyond Words; What Animals Think and Feel (2015).
This book is co-published with Nottingham Contemporary.
Published on the occasion of Marguerite Humeau's solo exhibitions at the Palais de Tokyo (23.06 - 11.09 2016) and at Nottingham Contemporary (15.10 2016 - 08.01 2017).
Political, poetic, committed, profound: Jean-Michel Alberola's oeuvre is an artist's reaction to reality, human feelings and the state of the world. His exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo triggers a voyage that stimulates the eye and the mind as it maps the underappreciated diversity of his work. Associating bodily and geographical fragments with ambiguous statements and injunctions, this major and utterly distinctive figure on the French art scene shapes rebuses that challenge both our way of seeing and the role of art in society. And yet, in its intermingling of artistic speculation and political questioning, and of conceptualism, abstraction and figuration, Alberola's unique, hard-hitting oeuvre is never without its touch of humour.
Book contents
- "Adding Up the Details: Chapter 1": A text by Jean-Michel Alberola.
- "The Crossing and the Passeur": A conversation between Jean-Michel Alberola and Katell Jaffrès, curator of Jean-Michel Alberola's solo exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo.
- "He Who is Taking Himself by Surprise": An essay by Dominique Païni.
About the authors
- Katell Jaffrès is a curator at the Palais de Tokyo.
- Dominique Païni is a critic, a writer and a curator. He has written numerous publications focusing on the connection between cinema and fine arts.
Book published on the occasion of Jean-Michel Alberola's solo exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo, "L'Aventure des détails" 19.02 - 16.05 2016
Ragnar Kjartansson's singular work is a cross between performance and cinema, sculpture and opera, plein air painting and music. He often produces large-scale multidisciplinary projects and the production of his works often requires the collaboration of several participants-actors, musicians, friends and family members. Experimenting the mechanisms of theatre and the dramatic impulses of tragedy, Ragnar Kjartansson succeeds in bringing emotions out of melodramatic actions and in revealing the reality on which relies every interpretation. Through repetition, which is genuine motif in his work, Ragnar Kjartansson enlightens the theatricality and efforts at work in everyday life.
Book contents
- "Once Again": An essay by Laure Fernandez.
- "Only He Who Knows Desire": A conversation between Ragnar Kjartansson and Julien Fronsacq.
About the authors
- Laure Fernandez is a researcher in performing arts. Her research projects focus in particular on the idea of theatricality in the contemporary visual arts.
- Julien Fronsacq is a curator at the Palais de Tokyo and the curator of Ragnar Kjartansson's solo exhibition.
Book published on the occasion of Ragnar Kjartansson's solo exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo, "Seul celui qui connaît le désir," 21.10 2015 - 10.01 2016
Conceived as an emotional structure, , Mélanie Matranga's exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo is intentionally equivocal. Its very titlein Mandarinputs us in an awkward situation, just as when we need to ask a stranger our way in an unknown city, or when we have to admit our inability to understand a message before being even able to start a conversation. Mélanie Matranga combines in her exhibition signs that reflect upon interiority with elements linked to social attitudes and habits. We find ourselves amid familiar objects and generic forms, in situations where self-expression, paradoxically, is possible only once identity is lost. They are places to be alone with others.
Book contents
- Complex or Complicated: A conversation between Mélanie Matranga, Thomas Boutoux and Benjamin Thorel.
- Speaking and Cursing in Song: An essay by Delphine Manetta.
- Into Words, Into Action: An essay by Julien Mahon.
About the authors
- Thomas Boutoux and Benjamin Thorel are the curators of Mélanie Matranga's solo exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo.
- Delphine Manetta is an ethnologist.
- Julien Mahon is a cinema critic.
Book published on the occasion of Mélanie Matranga's solo exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo, , 21.10 2015 10.01 2016
In his film work, Jesper Just links images of an exceptional quality to sound and music. Enigmas disrupt the narrative, creating a poetry-liberating tension. The artist leaves spectators with their own doubts and emotions. The work conceived for the Palais de Tokyo consists of an audiovisual installation and a spatial intervention, which transforms both the space and the visitor's journey. The One World Trade Center, an iconic and controversial skyscraper, is as much the scene of the films, as a character in itself. It functions as a phantom limb, while also standing for resilience. The films follow two characters: a young girl, who is not an individual but embodies the ideals of youth and feminity conveyed today, and a disabled child. The characters mirror, oppose and interact, to explore themes of ableism and agency as well as the boundaries of body and selfhood.
Book contents
- "Servitudes": Jesper Just in conversation with Katell Jaffrès, curator of Jesper Just's exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo
- "In The Doubling of Dreams": an essay by Fabien Danesi on Jesper Just's film work
- Notes on a selection of the artist's films
About the authors
- Fabien Danesi is an art historian. He's managing the programme of the Pavillon Neuflize OBC, the research lab of the Palais de Tokyo.
- Katell Jaffrès is a curator at the Palais de Tokyo.
Published on the occasion of Jesper Just's solo exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo, "Servitudes", 24.06 2015 - 13.09 2015
Abraham Poincheval est un explorateur insatiable. Qu'il s'agisse de traverser les Alpes en poussant une capsule qui lui sert d'abri ou de s'enfermer une semaine dans un rocher, ses expéditions - itinérantes ou statiques - nécessitent un engagement total du corps. Les sculptures habitables que l'artiste conçoit sont des laboratoires au moyen desquels il fait l'expérience du temps, de l'enfermement ou de l'immobilité. Elles sont l'enveloppe qui accueille le performeur, l'objet qui perturbe le paysage et qui existe à travers les récits des témoins. Les deux nouvelles performances d'Abraham Poincheval au Palais de Tokyo le conduisent à expérimenter les temporalités des règnes animal et minéral.
Livre publié à l'occasion de l'exposition personnelle d'Abraham Poincheval au Palais de Tokyo, 03.02 - 08.05 2017
Dorian Gaudin privilégie les jeux de correspondances reliant les mondes organique, psychique et matériel. Combinant performances, sculpture et cinéma, son oeuvre joue des allers-retours entre l'automatisation et le vivant. L'artiste met en mouvement, désarticule et mécanise, en conjuguant les genres (théâtre de l'absurde et cinéma de science-fiction, burlesque et minimalisme). Dans son exposition au Palais de Tokyo, machine et rituel social, illusion visuelle et présence physique mettent en oeuvre une mécanique qui est aussi celle des sentiments. Révélant la capacité qu'ont les objets à faire récit et à susciter notre inclination, les oeuvres de Dorian Gaudin nous rappellent la façon dont le fétichisme des objets et de la technique régit notre rapport au monde.
Livre publié à l'occasion de l'exposition personnelle de Dorian Gaudin au Palais de Tokyo, 03.02 - 08.05 2017
Mêlant couleurs, lumière, masse et illusions, Florian et Michael Quistrebert rejouent dans leurs oeuvres de grands motifs de l'art moderne, en les pervertissant, à partir d'une approche singulière de la matière. Au Palais de Tokyo, ils déploient un vaste théâtre optique au sein duquel l'expérience de leurs peintures et vidéos est troublée par les brillances et les mouvements internes des objets. Paradoxales, les oeuvres des frères Quistrebert évoquent l'impossibilité de la saisie du tableau. Leurs peintures ne sont jamais ce qu'elles montrent, ou plutôt ne se stabilisent jamais à l'endroit de leur sujet. Les artistes explorent la perception en la saisissant sous différents aspects, intellectuels, optiques, symboliques ou encore occultes.
Livre publié à l'occasion de l'exposition personnelle de Florian & Michael Quistrebert au Palais de Tokyo, « The Light of the Light », 19.02 - 16.05 2016
Politique, poétique, engagée et profonde, l'oeuvre de Jean-Michel Alberola lui permet de réagir par l'art, sur le réel, les sentiments et l'état du monde. Son exposition au Palais de Tokyo initie un voyage qui stimule le regard et la pensée, en cartographiant la diversité méconnue de son travail. Associant des fragments de corps ou de géographies à des énoncés ou des injonctions ambiguës, cet artiste majeur et inclassable de la scène française compose autant de rébus qui interrogent notre regard tout comme le rôle de l'art dans la société. Évoluant entre réflexions artistiques et questionnements politiques, entre conceptualisme, abstraction et figuration, l'oeuvre de Jean-Michel Alberola, unique et percutante, n'est jamais dénuée d'humour.
Livre publié à l'occasion de l'exposition personnelle de Jean-Michel Alberola au Palais de Tokyo, « L'Aventure des détails », 19.02 - 16.05 2016
Dans son travail filmique, Jesper Just associe les images, d'une qualité exceptionnelle, au son et à la musique. L'énigme vient perturber la narration et la tension créée laisse émerger la poésie. L'artiste livre ainsi le spectateur à ses interrogations et ses émotions.
Livre publié à l'occasion de l'exposition personnelle de Jesper Just au Palais de Tokyo, « Servitudes », 24.06 2015 - 13.09 2015
Mythes, fantasmes et spéculations sont au coeur de l'oeuvre de Marguerite Humeau. Toujours situés aux frontières de la recherche et de la fiction, les projets de Marguerite Humeau sont le fruit d'investigations approfondies et de collaborations avec des spécialistes et scientifiques. Au Palais de Tokyo et à Nottingham Contemporary, elle propose de vivre une expérience unique, physique et sensorielle. Avec son exposition « FOXP2 » - nom du gène dont la mutation a permis l'apparition du langage articulé, à la source de notre humanité -, l'artiste rejoue l'origine de la vie et celle du développement de formes de vies conscientes. En imaginant un monde où des éléphants géants domineraient la planète, elle crée artificiellement des créatures douées d'émotions et de conscience.
Livre publié à l'occasion des expositions personnelles de Marguerite Humeau au Palais de Tokyo (23.06 - 11.09 2016) et à Nottingham Contemporary (15.10 2016 - 08.01 2017).
Généreux et plein d'humour, le travail de Laure Prouvost examine les relations entre langage, image et perception, plaçant le visiteur dans des situations de doute et d'incompréhension, mais aussi d'émerveillement intellectuel et sensoriel. Ces situations deviennent des installations immersives qui invitent à l'évasion et dans lesquelles dialoguent films, sculptures, peintures, tapisseries, performances. Son exposition au Palais de Tokyo, « Ring, Sing and Drink for Trespassing », est une ode aux chemins de traverse et au dépassement des limites, à la joie de se faufiler à travers un grillage pour découvrir un terrain vague ou un jardin aujourd'hui abandonné.
Livre publié à l'occasion de l'exposition personnelle de Laure Prouvost au Palais de Tokyo, « Ring, Sing and Drink for Trespassing », 22.06 - 09.09.2018
Mika Rottenberg développe une pratique artistique qui conjugue la réalisation de vidéos, d'installations, de dessins et de sculptures. Dans de nombreuses de ses oeuvres, elle met en scène des situations absurdes de travail à la chaîne, souvent interprétées par des femmes. Leurs corps, hors des normes et loin des canons habituels, sont entièrement mobilisés et utilisés comme outils de travail et matières premières. Captivants récits où la fantaisie et l'humour se mêlent à l'étrangeté et où le réel semble se distordre dans la fiction, les films de Mika Rottenberg sont montrés au sein d'installations immersives qui plongent les spectateurs dans leur univers au-delà de l'écran et participent ainsi à brouiller les frontières entre imaginaire et réalité.
Livre publié à l'occasion de l'exposition personnelle de Mika Rottenberg au Palais de Tokyo, 23.06 - 11.09 2016
Chaque oeuvre réalisée par Patrick Neu détourne des techniques traditionnelles et engage de nouvelles expérimentations qu'il poursuit aussi longtemps que nécessaire. L'artiste manie des matériaux peu familiers du champ de l'art : ailes d'abeille, noir de fumée sur verre, cristal, cire, bloc d'encre de Chine, ailes de papillon, mues de serpent, coquilles d'oeuf, papier carbonisé, etc. Depuis trente ans Patrick Neu développe son travail dans la discrétion. Les oeuvres présentées dans son exposition au Palais de Tokyo suggèrent ce dialogue périlleux avec les matériaux et la mémoire du monde. Les décisions audacieuses, l'aventure de la pensée, l'insistance de la durée, le dialogue avec l'histoire sont les ingrédients de la recherche de l'artiste sur les processus de la mémoire et de l'oubli, sur l'épanouissement macabre des fleurs, sur la rémanence des images archaïques.
Livre publié à l'occasion de l'exposition personnelle de Patrick Neu au Palais de Tokyo, 24.06 2015 - 13.09 2015
Ragnar Kjartansson compose une oeuvre singulière à la croisée de la performance et du cinéma, de la sculpture et de l'art lyrique, de la peinture de plein air et de la musique. Il produit régulièrement de vastes projets interdisciplinaires dont la réalisation implique souvent plusieurs participants - acteurs, musiciens, amis et membres de sa famille. Éprouvant les mécanismes du spectacle et les ressorts de la tragédie, Ragnar Kjartansson parvient conjointement à faire advenir une émotion à travers des gestes mélodramatiques et à révéler la réalité qui se joue dans les fondements de toute interprétation. Par la répétition, véritable motif de son oeuvre, Ragnar Kjartansson éclaire l'effort à l'oeuvre et la théâtralité de la vie quotidienne.
Livre publié à l'occasion de l'exposition personnelle de Ragnar Kjartansson au Palais de Tokyo, « Seul celui qui connaît le désir », 21.10 2015 - 10.01 2016
