on INSIDE, a group show at the Palais de Tokyo

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Inside

Palais de Tokyo

13 Avenue du Président Wilson – 16e

October 20th

, 2014 - January 11th

, 2015

Published at Hyperallergic as

Long, Strange Group Show Trip

http://hyperallergic.com/168963/a-long-strange-group-show-trip/

Inside is group show as inner wormhole. The metaphoric theme of this exhibit of videos,

numinous wall works and scenic installation art, curated by Jean de Loisy, Daria de

Beauvais and Katell Jaffrè, is the disturbing space of an inner trip. Through the use of

physical immersion, the works present an expressive opportunity for introspective

passage, one that often leads to the freak-out vulnerability of the internal self.

This ambitious show contains work by mostly mid-career French artists born in the

1970s. It is constructed as a long continuum of connected chambers that takes up two of

the huge floors of the Palais de Tokyo. The resulting higgledy-piggledy art odyssey is

feverishly romantic, full of dark imagination that bends towards the primal in a way that

was both physically immersive and mentally engaging, often holding me in a state of

intense but pleasurable (soft) concentration. There is an eerie tone to most of the work, as

it blends romantic despair (some with the urgency of comedy) with bitter self-loathing;

inner melodramatic voraciousness with overwhelming scale.



Numen/For Use, “Tape Paris” (2014)

Numen/For Use, “Tape Paris” (2014) entrance Palais de Tokyo

Overhead at the entrance I encountered a sprawling claustrophobic-inspiring flourish, as



two people were working their way through a transparent tunnel system created out of

Scotch tape by colab Numen/For Use. This monumental installation suggested to me both

organic innards and a cocooned spider’s web that hints at what is to come: a drop into the

webbed-depths of the psyche.

Eva Jospin, “Forêt” (2012)

This metaphysical drop starts by passing through a densely delicate cardboard forest by

Eva Jospin. It well prepares us for the fairytale-like sensorial propensities to come, often

based in deportments of fear and introspection. Such as in the magically hushed drama of

Stéphane Thidet’s forest themed cabin “Le Refuge” (2014), similar to those in which

hikers spend the night. Inside, reversing without with within, incessant streams of water

dropped convincingly like rain, slowly destroying the furniture and books. Emotionally, it

delivered an air of magical but blunt grimness.



Stéphane Thidet, “Le Refuge” (2014)



Stéphane Thidet, “Le Refuge” (2014) interior detail

In another sensuality rugged yet thought-provoking work, Abraham Poincheval showed

the pimped-out bear carcass that he lived in for two weeks while being filmed by two

cameras.



Christophe Berdaguer & Marie Péjus, “E.17 Y.40 A.18 C.28 X.40 0.13,5” (2014)



Marcius Galan, “Diagonal Section” (2014)

Nearby, I traversed the transcendental sheen of Marcius Galan’s Fred Sandback-ish

illusionist piece – a move that enabled me to dematerialize and pass through the looking

glass.



Sookoon Ang, “Exorcise Me” (2013) 4 channel video installation

As my amble continued, things got self-absorbed and grotesque, with Sookoon Ang’s

video installation “Exorcise Me.” Here, teenage girls in school uniforms wear death

metal-like painted masks while taking languorous poses that recall the young girls

painted by Balthus.



Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg, “Deceiving Looks” (2011) with music by Hans Berg

Wildly grotesque are the animated films of Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg, imbued

with fake blood and chaos. The vibrant surfaces of their cartoon figures belie volcanic

fantasies of fear. A gigantic sprouting “Potato” (2008) holds three animations and forms

the core of their installation. Other animations, projected large on the surrounding walls,

show psychoanalytical narratives of animism, all wracked with the tortured human body.

They display a very gloomy sense of violent hilarity that touches on a folklore of the dark

side. This grandiose room is sometimes quite beautiful and moving, even when

emotionally violent. Traveling in the head of these artists takes guts.



dran, “Attention de ne pas tomber” (2014)

Also brazenly concocting a roiling inner underworld is the painter dran, an artist who first

gained recognition through his books La télévision (2005), Ma ville, je l’aime (2005) and

100 jours et quelques (2010). Here he has taken over the big staircase connecting the two

floors of the exhibit. His graphic tour de force, exclusively painted in black on white

walls, constitutes a spatial story (très mystérieuses) that unfolds as one walks down the

stairs to the bummer stuff below.

Andro Wekua suggests a contemplative relationship to claustrophobia with a sculpture of

a wax mannequin with its head encapsulated in a house, a painting, and a short film that borders on science fiction, “Never Sleep With a Strawberry in Your Mouth II” (2010-

2012).



Andro Wekua, “Untitled” (2011)



Christian Boltanski, “L’Homme qui tousse” (1969)

With his work “L’Homme qui tousse” (1969), Christian Boltanski presents a film of a

modestly dressed man sitting on the floor of a dilapidated room, his body wracked

continuously as he coughs up blood that flows over his chest and legs.

“Get Out of my Mind, Get Out of This Room” (1968), a sound installation by Bruce

Nauman, offered me an immersive experience of abuse. It consists of an empty small

white room, filled only with sound of a voice that seems to come from all directions.

Simply constructed, it consisted of a male voice shouting and moaning the injunction of

the title. There is nothing to see. Yet the rhythmic pattern of the voice bleating out this

repetitious ornately coupled incantation without end locked me into a surround-sound

immersive cognitive/dissonant situation: one of attraction/repulsion.

However, if we are not to settle for affirmations of the claustrophobicness or emptiness of

our being, it seems to me that any immersive proposition must also be an initiatory one

done at the limits of ourselves. This means, on the one hand, opening up a realm of



doubt, but on the other, a test of affinity with contemporary ideas of infinity. So I think

that the best piece in the show was Marc Couturier’s sleek monumental mural drawing,

“Troisième jour [third day]” (2014); a beautifully vague work that turns inner intimacy

sumptuous and grand. Couturier’s ensnarling pencil drawing is a maelstrom of mystery

that faintly suggests a forest of trees. It flows in one spontaneous and continuous gesture,

evoking unseen realms and timeless obscurities. The subject refers to the Book of Genesis

in which, on the third day of Creation, the waters withdraw from the earth to create

vegetation.

Magnificent yet delicate, the piece calls for a contemplation that yields to the fuzzy but

palpable poetry that exists inside each of us. It is a probing of intimate precision as it

might mesh with a stylishly vast turbulence; a probing of an inner life as bold as

landscape.

Marc Couturier, “Troisième jour” (2014) graphite wall drawing

on INSIDE, a group show at the Palais de Tokyo

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