For his first intervention at Palais de Tokyo, Tadashi Kawamata presents two site-specific, monumental works. In keeping with his interventions on public and private buildings since the 1980s, first in Japan and then worldwide, Kawamata claims both the exterior and interior spaces of Palais de Tokyo, allowing his work to engage with the public sphere and the daily flow of the building.

“Nest at Palais de Tokyo” rests perched fifteen meters atop one of the columns of the large white colonnade outside the building. Alongside the tree hut, the nest is one of the recurring motifs in his “parasite-like” interventions, which integrate into the geometries of existing architecture or among the twisting branches of century-old trees. These temporary constructions, solid in structure yet ephemeral in nature, draw attention to the notion of domestic space in its social and symbolic dimensions, which reflect the way we inhabit our environment.

Inside Palais de Tokyo, “Tornado” towers over the viewer from the top of the staircase, spanning approximately twenty metres in diameter. Constructed from various types of recycled wood, reclaimed from the artist’s previous projects, this immense structure reveals an internal dynamism created by the irregular arrangement of wooden planks, suggesting movement.

Expanding from the cocoon-like structure of the nest, this new declination of the artist’s research unfolds as a release of energy that echoes the violence of natural disasters amplified by the climate crisis. Its dramatic suspension from the ceiling further amplifies its imposing presence, placing the viewer directly in the eye of a cyclone. Yet, perhaps, this too is a nest, offering shelter in the midst of the storm, caught in that fleeting instant in-between being and no longer.

The works are made available by Maison Ruinart and Mennour, Paris.

• Free admission