Spotted in 2022, during the Gothenburg Biennial (Sweden), Danish artist Rasmus Myrup, 33, has since traveled between The Hague (Netherlands) and New York. His stopover, until September 8, 2024, at the Criée, in Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine), is not anecdotal since his residence in Brittany leads him to enrich his bestiary with several characters inspired by the Nordic mythology and that he tinkers with recycled materials or collected in nature.
Holly and Guérande salt, roses, gorse and earth from the Brocéliande forest allow him to complete his funny menagerie. The contemporary art center on Place Commeurec looks like a prehistoric gallery, unless it is futuristic. It is certainly offbeat, between a medieval gathering and a decadent society lounge where the cans of beer are neatly lined up on the table.
The ancestor of “off”
One of the guests, half-man, half-beast, with abstract features, his face carved from bone, refers to Hervard, a Scandinavian hero, born female around the year 1000 and considered one of the first trans characters. This “Salon des refuses” – the title of the exhibition – serves, in a way, as a refuge, a haven of peace for a fantastic bestiary, for singular characters, without any real identity.
Originally, the “refused” were, at the end of the 19th centurye century in Paris, artists not admitted into the inner circle of official painters. Manet, Monet and Renoir were, for a time, among these “banished”, organizing themselves to set up their own salon and thus creating the ancestor of “off” in art.
Until September 8, 2024“Salon des trouvés” at La Criée, Place Honoré-Commeurec, from Tuesday to Sunday, from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. Free. The exhibition is part of Exporama 2024, a summer of contemporary art in Rennes.
