Anywhere, Anywhere. Out of the World was an exhibition held in the Palais de Tokyo in Paris from October 23th, 2013 until January 12th, 2014. It was a “carte blanche” for the French artist Philippe Parreno, who was invited to reign over the whole museum. Parreno already did an important exhibition in the Galerie Sud of the Centre Pompidou, entitled « 8 juin 1968 – 7 septembre 2009 ». In both events, the artist was mainly concerned about the space of exhibition, thus centering his work more specifically on the experience of visitor, rather than on creating objects.
The exhibition doesn’t have precisely a point of departure, because must elements used by Parreno were present since the entrance, fused in a mixture of sounds and lights. Standing in front of the reception desk, where a first brightly installation was placed, we could hear the sounds coming from the next room, and the voice of Ann-Lee, who only appears at the end of the visit. Thus, it was possible to have a “glimpse” of the following, experiencing a sort of contraction of time and space. Then, it was necessary to wander around the exhibition in order to perceive the singularity of each element.
One of the most enjoyable moments of the exhibition was the room of canopies, a choreography of lights and sounds, where every canopy had specific forms and sounds. It was irresistible to play in this place, running behind the lights, fleeing under the shadows… Nicolas Becker, sound designer of the exhibition, had certainly a lot of work there.
My best souvenir of the exhibition is related to the performance of Ann-Lee, conceived by Tino Seghal. At the begin there is a voice outside of a room, followed by a video where a manga’s character talks about its “life”. At the end of the video, a young girl of about 13 years old came to the center of the room and presents herself as a tridimensional version of Ann Lee. She was surprised with her new body and was talking about this experience… She described her relation with her creators, and the way she saw human life. She was curious about why some people prefers to have a lot of free time while other prefers to have a lot of work. So, she asked to us.
— What do you prefer? To have a lot of free time, or to have a lot of work? Why?
During my first visit, I stayed in this room for a long time and sought this performance for three times. I was really captivated with the idea of incarnation, that could be a classic idea, but a really strong one. Like in The Purple Rose of Cairo…
Unfortunately, visitors of museums (including me) are not necessary prepared to interact with art. So Ann-Lee doesn’t received many answers. With the time, I discovered that the story related by Ann-Lee had variations, and supposed that they could be related to visitors’ answers (if they preferred to have time or to have work). I remembered the collection of labyrinth books that my sister and me received when we were child. In each one it was possible to choose the progression of the story. Different developments and conclusions were available. In some way, Ann-Lee’s performance was a sort of labyrinth, a place with multiple paths, connected by one enigma.
This exhibition was a great surprise for me, and it justifies two long visits, one of them with my favorite guest.
Very interesting reviews are available on the following links :
- Emmanuelle Lequeux, “Parreno joue les illusionnistes au Palais de Tokyo”. Le Monde, 1/11/2013
- Mathieu Rollinger, “Philippe Parreno hante le Palais de Tokyo”. Le Figaro, 23/10/2013.
- Eric Loret, “Complétement Parreno”, Next-Libération.
- Jean-Max Colard and Claire Moulene, “Parreno au Palais de Tokyo: une timeline de l’espace”. Les Inrocks, 18/11/2013.
- Guillaume Benoît, “Philippe Parreno. Anywhere, Anywhere out of the World – Palais de Tokyo”. Slash, 12/12/2013.
- Philippe Parreno: un fantôme est un livre oublié qu’on réinvente. Art Press.
- Jeff Rian, “Philippe Parreno. Palais de Tokyo, Paris”. Artforum, 52 (2), January 2014, pp. 203-204.