LORIS GRÉAUD, AT THE BORDERS OF THE VISIBLE AND THE IMMATERIAL

After Yves Klein, who exhibited the void in 1958 ¹ and John Cage, who gave voice to silence in 1952 ²Loris Gréaud showcases the immaterial. Fifteen years after taking over the Palais de Tokyo, then in 2013 the Louvre pyramid and the Centre Pompidou forum, the French artist (born in 1979) invites us to wander through a palace haunted by sounds, smoke, living organisms and hypnotic lights.

Invited to take possession of the Petit Palais, built for the 1900 Universal Exhibition by Charles Girault, the "phantom of museums" ³In fact, he conceived his exhibition entitled "Les Nuits Corticales" more as a "rumor", a "narrative nebula" ⁴than as a "display of works" ⁵.

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"An interstitial exhibition"

Composed of a "series of encounters," this new exhibition unfolds as an aesthetic (or perhaps initiatory?) journey from the museum's exterior to the inner garden. Resembling a "giant automaton," it sets in motion a whole series of machines, starting with a "sequencer sculpture" resembling a mixing console, manipulated by an "agent" with an implant… Entitled Cortical – a term dear to the artist, describing “the outer envelope of an inner organism,” which “[describes] pretty much the entire exhibition” ⁴This machine-like artwork notably contains samples of ethyl formate, the terrestrial molecule discovered in 2009 at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, which powers the diffusers of the invisible olfactory sculpture occupying the south gallery. It is also within this precious casing that recordings of the acoustic performances of euphone players are preserved, performances that vibrate the "musical angels" installed amidst the plaster casts in the sculpture gallery. Remaining silent except for their activation at the end of the day, before the museum closes, these instrument-sculptures bear witness to the interstitial nature of this "virtually invisible" (and yet spectacular) exhibition where "one can see nothing." ⁴Thus, primitive organisms, the Physarum polycephalum, nicknamed blobs, proliferate discreetly on the plant islands surrounding the three ponds in the garden in an artificial climate generated by rain, mist and snow machines.

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From the invisible to the spectacular

At the crossroads of science fiction and fantasy, this indoor garden offers visitors a unique experience: ubiquity, allowing them to listen to the sounds of the world captured in real time from the far reaches of the world. ⁶: in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, in the depths of the Antarctic seas, under the Arctic ice pack, in the desert plains of Africa or even the Sea of Japan.

Another experience to enjoy, outside, between 21 pm and 22 pm, in front of the main gate: a psychedelic experience. While the museum is closed, a Dreamachine, similar to that invented by Brion Gysin in 1960, sets the rotunda of the Petit Palais ablaze and irradiates the ornamental portal with hallucinogenic luminous pulses. "A meeting during which, like an undercover agent, 'Les Nuits Corticales' finds its most beautiful appearance in the skulls of its viewers," since the light frequencies passing through our eyelids create colored vortices and even mental images… We can thus understand Loris Gréaud's ambition to create, beyond la form, or beyond the shapes, a mental space to explore, a space of freedom. "We need to deploy art in a different way," this new master of the Total artwork ⁷ (total work of art) for whom museums "are the last spaces of freedom".

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The Void, Iris Clert Gallery, Paris, April-May 1958.
4'33'' of silenceWoodstock, August 29, 1952.
See the article in Acumen n^o 39.
Quotes from the artist taken from an interview given by the artist to Acumen September 25th.
Quotes from the artist taken from the program "Affaires culturelles" by Arnaud Laporte, broadcast on France Culture on October 6th.
With Professor Michel André, a pioneer in bioacoustics.
A concept originating from German Romanticism and defined by Wagner in the mid-19th century^e century. Total art is characterized by the simultaneous use of several artistic disciplines with a multisensory scope aimed at merging art and life.