gb agency

INSIDE
Curators: Jean de Loisy, Daria de Beauvais and Katell Jaffrès

“Inside” gives the visitor a unique experience, a risky voyage through oneself in which the exhibition space
is the subject of the metaphor. This odyssey—as much physical as it is mental—is an invitation to walk through the Palais de Tokyo, metamorphosed by the artists in such a way that, from one installation to the next, from one floor to another, we find ourselves inside the works. These works, some of which were created specifically for the exhibition, bring us close to the very core of our being, from our experience of the space to our most secret thoughts and fears.

Similarly to darkrooms, the inner world is an ideal place for the appearance of images: from cave paintings and origin myths to discovering a subject’s interiority, from the inner turmoil of melancholy to the vast territory of the unconscious. For the Surrealists, it meant accessing the power of dreams; for Bataille, it was an ecstatic search for the most extreme states of thought. “Inside” also creates the possibility of plunging into the psyche of certain artists whose featured works are like so many mental projections that push the visitor to confront his or her own interiority.

This long tour through the exhibition is an opportunity of experiencing the building—transformed into an organism to be explored—in the manner of a journey, from physical to mental, from psychological to spiritual, according to the archetype of the initiatory journey. All of the works create an experience at once sensorial and emotional. “Inside” calls on all the emotions that make our humanity: joy, worry, fear, horror, desire, pleasure… A deep, troubling and unexpected experience.

Ryan GANDER

I Is… is a series of sculptures, three of which are presented here for the first time. Creating marble sculptures – a durable and noble material – taking after ephemeral huts built by his young daughter, ryan Gander (born in 1976, lives and works in London) draws attention to the idea of protection: from the fragile child’s cabin whose symbolic protection is immense, to the marble cabin – solid yet impenetrable, with draped effects characteristic of classical sculpture.

The works of Ryan Gander are like so many threads that create an enmeshment of forms and meanings (films, performances, photographs, installations…) – a mental puzzle carrying within it the legacy of conceptual art, whose meanings the artist unravels with humor. From a fake advertisement extolling the imaginary to a draft felt in a closed room, his multi-faceted work is never where one would expect it, and it plays off the complex relationship between reality and fiction.