An exhibition conceived in partnership with the Fondation Bettencourt Schueller

After a short story by the author Franck Thilliez

After L’Usage des formes, in 2015, Palais de Tokyo is displaying once more its interest in the connections between the artisans of art, designers and visual artists in this exhibition derived from a short story, especially written by the young and already famous crime-writer Franck Thilliez.

Starting from the pre-textual postulate that an artisan of art, an artist… and a criminal have the same obsessive fascination for details, the show dives into the daily, private existences of the professions of art, while at the same time telling a detective story, plotted by Franck Thilliez.

As opposed to traditional scenography, the staging of the exhibition will display both the studios and living spaces of two artisans of art, as well as a crime scene. The context of this scene is cutting-edge artisanship, close to new technologies. In this setting, each object on show is a work of art or design, while also being a clue leading the visitors to piece together the crime scenario in an attempt to solve the mystery.

The pieces, objects and furnishings it contains include a large number of commissioned works produced in collaboration with artists and artisans of art, for example a motorbike decked out by a feather-worker, photographs decorated by an embroiderer, a wooden screen sculpted and painted by an artist, ceramic vases generated by the sound of voices, a damask-steel dagger whose handle has been moulded from snake’s vertebra…

This project is not only ground-breaking formally, but also in its conception and means of diffusion. Having been conceived from the start as an original exploration of the dialogue between art and the artisans of art, based on the popular theme of crime writing, it is being embodied as both an exhibition and a short story.

This show is the second phase of a partnership with the Fondation Bettencourt Schueller to honour the professions of art and highlight their contemporaneousness.

Curator: Jean de Loisy, Associated curator: Bethsabée Attali

This exhibition is organized in partnership and with the Fondation Bettencourt Schueller

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