WITH : PIERRE-OLIVIER ARNAUD, SARAH FAUGUET & DAVID COUSINARD, ANNE-CHARLOTTE FINEL, POLAR INERTIA, RODRIGO MATHEUS, MARIE-LUCE NADAL, ARASH NASSIRI, VIVIEN ROUBAUD, ANNE-CHARLOTTE YVER, MENGZHI ZHENG

As part of the Modules Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent

“For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite.” (1)

The 13th Lyon Biennale is an occasion for Palais de Tokyo, in partnership with the Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent, to present a selection of young artists who are French or based in France.

During the course of a visit, which has been conceived as a stroll, the public is invited to become flâneurs in the huge Halle Girard, a former boiler-making plant built in 1857, which was converted a few years ago into a “paintball” venue. The space has been left untouched, and still bears vestiges of its industrial past, as well as traces of paint from the games played there.

In this space, which is being invested by art works for the first time, the public can discover an unstable scenery assembled by eleven artists, united by the attention they pay to landscape, the movement of bodies, and the choreography produced by encounters between them.

In this way, the artists have put together the signs of a territory: Mengzhi Zheng, Sarah Fauguet & David Cousinard explore ruins and the fragments of architecture, Anne-Charlotte Finel and Polar Inertia the unsettling power and mystery of abandoned places, Vivien Roubaud, Rodrigo Matheus and Marie-Luce Nadal objects in motion, Arash Nassiri sparkling city lights, Anne-Charlotte Yver and Pierre-Olivier Arnaud the skin of our walls.

This sketched-out scenery is the subjective choice of a curator, but also the familiar environment that reassures us during our captive wanderings.

With this off-site project, presenting break-through artists at the 13th Lyon Biennale, Palais de Tokyo is pursing its mission topromote the contemporary French scene at major international events.

(1) Charles Baudelaire, “The Painter of Modern Life,” published in Le Figaro, 1863

Curator: Hilde Teerlinck