Displacements, 2020

Centre de création contemporaine Olivier Debré

Curators : Catherine Bédard and Ami Barak

The exhibition brings together a series of archival photographs from the history of France reworked by the artist around a monumental sculpture taking the form of a crate with the dimensions of a precious and invisible masterpiece.

Déplacements consists of a large central installation, Monuments II, two video works (Drift and Buddha from the Kabul Museum collection), a luminous glass sculpture (Mirabilia II) and photographs (Aether, Bamiyan, The Venus de Milo).

Monuments II (2019) addresses the issue of protecting art from traumatic events. It pays homage to the efforts made by men and women, employees of institutions or ordinary citizens, to safeguard the work of art through its movements. This installation brings together a series of archival photographs taken from the history of France reworked by the artist around a monumental sculpture taking the form of a crate with the dimensions of a precious and invisible masterpiece.

Déplacements also includes a group of glass sculptures, Mirabilia II (2015-19), which holds in hollow the silhouette of works that have disappeared, been stolen or destroyed at various times in history.

These forms are in fact the memory of several objects, buildings or artistic monuments that have disappeared. By bringing them back into the light, these works that come back to life reaffirm the historical role that they carry within them. They testify both to the greatness and fragility of civilizations.

Ces formes sont en fait la mémoire de plusieurs objets, bâtiments ou monuments artistiques disparus. En les ramenant dans la lumière, ces œuvres qui reprennent vie réaffirment le rôle historique qu’elles portent en elles. Elles témoignent à la fois de la grandeur et de la fragilité des civilisations.