Visitors to the Parisian museum will now be able to observe figurative sculptures suspended upside down thanks to a false ceiling designed for the exhibition l’Addition, which will be held until February 2025.
Visitors to the Musée d’Orsay may be surprised: from October 15, they will be welcomed among 19th century statuese century by other contemporary sculptures, suspended upside down from a false ceiling. These resin statues depicting boys operating a drone, wearing a virtual reality headset or sitting on a washing machine, create the illusion of an inverted space, designed by two contemporary art troublemakers known for their installations on the edge of performance, Elmgreen & Dragset, who are Danish and Norwegian respectively.
Around ten statues make up their new installation specially designed for the temple of impressionism and entitled l’Additionwhich will remain installed in the museum until February 2025.
It includes both these figurative sculptures installed from a false ceiling on which another character walks upright as in a snow landscape. Leaning on a railing in one of the upper galleries of the museum, another statue seems to photograph the scene.
At the heart of the famous nave where the statues of the 19th century masters are exhibited, another character is installed at the edge of a diving board, an all-white bronze work, right side up. At the back of this central space, a final statue, in white marble, still represents a young man with virtual glasses looking at his open hands towards the sky.
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“We wanted our sculptures to meet those of the past”
« When you walk around, these sculptures which represent masculinity are very poetic and we want to add to what was already there, as a springboard for young men for whom it is no easier to grow up today than yesterday. »explains Ingar Dragset. Then the plastic surgeon specifies : « The boy with the drone, the one with the virtual reality headset, the one meditating while sitting on the washing machine, are the future generation that we must not forget in our admiration of history. We wanted our sculptures to meet those of the past ».
The two artists, who have collaborated since 1995, have redefined the concept of exhibition by designing temporary architectures and life-size models of public and private spaces around what already exists. Rather than viewing their artwork as a collection of static objects in a neutral space, they see each individual work as part of a larger story, which is reborn each time it is exhibited in a different context. They notably invested in the Pompidou-Metz center for several months in June 2023.
