Original triptych depicting different breeds of birds of paradise performing their own mating dance, perched on hunting trophies. The works are currently exhibited until December 2022 for the show HEY! LE DESSIN at la Halle Saint-Pierre Museum, in Paris.
Grand trophée de paradis
Watercolor and China Ink on 300g ARCHES paper • 120 x 80 cm
Trophée de paradis victorieux
Watercolor and China Ink on 300g ARCHES paper • 80 x 60 cm
Trophée de paradis royal
Watercolor and China Ink on 300g ARCHES paper • 60 x 40 cm
For this project I studied the story of the iconic birds of paradise and their attitude. I wanted to confront the hunting representation such as trophy room and hunting object, with birds that where hunted for their plumes since the very beginning of human settlement.
113 international artists - Opening saturday january 22, 2022 - Closing saturday december 31, 2022 - Musée de la halle saint pierre, Paris | Guest curator : Anne RICHARD / HEY! - Curator assistant : Zoé FORGET / HEY!
“HEY! Le Dessin marks ten years of rich and intense collaboration with La Halle Saint Pierre museum. The four previous HEY! exhibitions - which took place in 2011/12, 2013, 2015 and 2019 -, probed the contemporary notion of alternative and singularity, highlighting the various ways in which certain artists actively work on the margins of visible or recognized fields. Each exhibition featured over sixty international artists, many of whom had not previously exhibited in France or Europe. The ideas of “mixing through gathering” and “resistance through imagination” have been, since the creation of HEY! modern art & pop culture in 2010, guiding lines that irrigate its actions. Originally only a system of research, transfer or study, drawing has demonstrated since the 15th century its capacity to become an autonomous work of art. Nowadays, contemporary graphic activity is livelier than ever, and is reflected in a considerable quantity of drawings, produced with a great diversity of tools. Dedicated to drawing, this 2022 edition involves hundred and thirteen artists from about twenty different origins, amounting to nearly four hundred works on show. Drawing practices are observed here in a flow of expressions with composite, collusive or characteristic energy; it is not looked at in its sole quality of drawing, but approached according to its poetics, and through points of passage such as drawing as matrix, intermediary means or rehabilitating gesture. The heterogeneous and intuitive nature of the main theme opens on other mediums, and invites to question the source of the inspiration animating the artist, his graphic impulse, and the course produced by the work to finally exist.”
Text by Anne Richard, Guest curator HEY! modern art & pop culture
