Palais de Tokyo
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
Comment la musique, le geste et le corps deviennent-ils des langages universels ? Angelica Mesiti explore, à travers des installations vidéo et des performances, la richesse des communications non verbales.
Entre poésie et politique, Julien Creuzet déploie une œuvre fragmentée où se croisent histoires oubliées, imaginaires lointains et réalités sociales.
Et si l’art devenait une aventure physique et métaphysique ? Abraham Poincheval retrace les performances extrêmes d’un artiste qui défie les limites du corps et du temps, entre enfermement dans un rocher et traversée des Alpes dans une capsule.
En 2015, Céleste Boursier-Mougenot transformait le Palais de Tokyo en un paysage lacustre immersif, mêlant art visuel, son et expérience sensorielle.
Entre mécanique et émotion, Dorian Gaudin explore comment les objets et la technique façonnent notre rapport au monde.
Décryptez l’art contemporain à travers le prisme déroutant des frères Quistrebert : leurs œuvres, entre peinture et vidéo, brouillent les frontières de la perception.
Entre conceptualisme, abstraction et figuration, Jean-Michel Alberola défie les frontières de l’art contemporain.
À travers Jesper Just, explorez l’univers filmique envoûtant d’un artiste où images, sons et musique s’entremêlent pour créer une poésie visuelle troublante.
Entre art contemporain et escapade poétique, ce livre-monographie révèle l’univers décalé de Laure Prouvost, où installations immersives et récits visuels bousculent nos perceptions.
Et si les éléphants géants régnaient sur notre planète ? Marguerite Humeau explore cette hypothèse audacieuse, mêlant science, fiction et art pour interroger l’origine de la vie et de la conscience.
L’univers décalé et immersif de Mika Rottenberg se dévoile dans ce livre monographique, où installations, vidéos et sculptures interrogent notre rapport au travail, au corps et à la fiction.
Plongez dans l’univers énigmatique de Mélanie Matranga, où l’art contemporain interroge notre rapport à l’identité et aux codes sociaux.
Patrick Neu, artiste discret et audacieux, transforme des matériaux insolites en œuvres évocatrices : ailes d’abeille, cristal, cire ou noir de fumée.
À la croisée de la performance, du cinéma et de la musique, Ragnar Kjartansson explore la répétition comme miroir de notre quotidien.
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
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
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
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
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
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).
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
From a background rich in literature and the history of arts and architecture-as well as psychoanalysis, spiritism and magic-Ulla von Brandenburg explores the shaping of our social constructs with borrowings from theatrical codes and mechanisms, together with esoteric rituals and popular ceremonies. For her exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo she has conceived a total, constantly evolving project inspired by the theatre, its imaginary realm and its conventions. With ritual as her starting point, she invites the public to experience an immersive reinterpretation of the themes, forms and motifs-including movement, the stage, colour, music and textiles-that fuel her oeuvre. Book published on the occasion of Ulla von Brandenburg's solo exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo, 21.02 - 13.09.2020
Nourrie de littérature, d'histoire des arts et de l'architecture, mais aussi de psychanalyse, de spiritisme et de magie, Ulla von Brandenburg emprunte aussi bien aux codes et aux mécanismes du théâtre qu'aux rituels ésotériques et aux cérémonies populaires afin d'explorer la construction de nos structures sociales. Pour son exposition au Palais de Tokyo, elle a imaginé un projet total et évolutif, inspiré du théâtre, de son imaginaire et de ses conventions. Autour de la notion de rituel, l'artiste invite le public à prendre part à une expérience immersive et renouvelée des thèmes, des formes et des motifs qui irriguent son oeuvre : le mouvement, la scène, la couleur, la musique, le textile... Livre publié à l'occasion de l'exposition personnelle d'Ulla von Brandenburg au Palais de Tokyo, 21.02 - 13.09.2020