You all know by now my love for the ‚unbeatable’ museum of Modern Art in Paris Palais De Tokyo. Every time we visit, it grabs me be surprise, it moves me, it turns certainties upside-down. This exhibition, opened October 20 th, is _again _nothing less than fantastic. 30 artists, gathered together by curators Jean de Loisy, Daria de Beauvais, Katell Jaffrès around one mutual theme, all experimenting and stretching the given boundary ‚INSIDE’ it’s own expression and interpretation. Let me take you inside, so you block some time in your agenda to check this one out, before it is too late.
You can see the theme ‘Inside’ as a passage to the interior of your inner self, the exhibition space itself serves as a metaphor. Two floors and the entrance of the Palais de Tokyo are taken over and being transformed by the resident artists to remain constantly immersed in the works, to lead us within ourselves – from skin to our most intimate thoughts. It’s a physical and psychological walk into ourselves, our neighbors, the body and the (not so) human mind.
The inner journey starts ‚full frontal’ in the museum hall, where the collective, known as Numen/For Use, installed one of its futuristic branched ‚tape’ structures. The stretched biomorphic skin of Tape Paris is marking the entry point to the whole experience, being a literal incarnation of an inner-directed, regressive environment – the sense of descent into the primordial always lingering around its openings. Look up when you enter, and you feel the magic of this installation in a blink.
Apparently it took twelve people, ten days to wrap-up the concrete pillars in the great entrance hall of Palais de Tokyo into a maze of accessible translucent passageways, which coil 30 meters through the museum space and reach the total height of 3 meters.
The cool thing is that it’s not just amazing to look at; you actually can get in the sculpture!
Golden tip: register as soon as possible at the desk, to make sure you’re one of the few to get in the tape cocoon. The thin layers of film make up the network flex under the weight of passing visitors, and the translucent surfaces give views from within the structure to the floor below. (And vice versa)
Only 5 people are let in at the time, to make sure the construction holds and also to make your climb an isolated, quiet experience. How does it work? Just climb up the spiral staircase, crawl or wobble through the tenuous, translucent tunnel, and descend down a different staircase. Leave your shoes, coat and back pack behind and enjoy the climb!
We did it, and it’s so worth it!
Wallpaper magazine reports that ‘Tape Paris’ was a specific request from Palais de Tokyo president Jean de Loisy, who clearly recognized that the installation would fascinate as much from the outside, by revealing silhouettes of bodies on all fours, as from within. (Read more at http://bit.ly/1rVZt3i)
It’s not the first tape structure the guys from Numen/For Use have installed in a public space so far. Others appeared in Frankfurt, Melbourne, and Tokyo.
Their impact is every time without a doubt impressive.
Much more on my visit of the Inside exhibition on the following The Squid stories blog post. In the meanwhile, book a ticket before it’s too late guys!
Let me know how you liked it! Looking forward for your stories.
Kate
©ALL photos by Kate Stockman_THE SQUID STORIES