ANOTHER WORLD///IN OUR WORLD

A CONTEMPORARY TAKE ON FANTASTIC REALISM

Artists: Boris Achour, Véronique Béland, Yoan Beliard, Abdelkader Benchamma, Santiago Borja, Rémi Bragard, Vincent Ceraudo, Emma Charrin & Olivier Muller, Alexis Choplain, Arnauld Colcomb & Bertrand Planes, David De Beyter, David Droubaix, Veaceslav Druta, Éric Duyckaerts, Jean-Louis Faure, Nicolas Floc’h, Yona Friedman, Alexis Choplain, Arnauld Colcomb & Bertrand Planes, David De Beyter, David Droubaix, Veaceslav Druta, Éric Duyckaerts, Jean-Louis Faure, Nicolas Floc’h, Yona Friedman, GENERAL IDEA, Norbert Ghisoland, Jean Gourmelin, Rodney Graham, Giulia Grossmann, Martin Gusinde, Jackson, Louis Jammes, Magdalena Jetelová, Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis, Véronique Joumard, Emmanuelle K., Bertrand Lamarche, Eva L’Hoest, Barbara & Michael Leisgen, Augustin Lesage, Pierre Mazingarbe, Corey McCorkle, Pierre Mercier, Jean-Louis Montigone, Gianni Motti, NASA, Dennis Oppenheim, Jean-Michel Othoniel, Adrian Paci, Trevor Paglen, PANAMARENKO, Abraham Poincheval, Enrique Ramirez, George Reavey, Gwendoline Robin, Lucien Rudaux, Bettina Samson, Dennis Stock, Anaïs Tondeur, Agnès Troublé dite agnès b., João Vieira Torres, Gilberto Zorio

“Modern science has shown us that behind the visible there is an extremely complicated invisible.” J. Bergier & L. Pauwels, The Morning of the Magicians

How to master the strangeness of the world? Registering the failure of a too-rational approach, this exhibition is a voyage summoning us to probe the Earth’s mysteries.

With this in mind it offers a discovery of fantastic realism, a major feature of the 1960s counterculture, via works by contemporary artists challenging dominant forms of knowledge and hybridising scientific and esoteric knowledge. A mutant little brother of Surrealism, fantastic realism, founded by Jacques Bergier and Louis Pauwels at the magazine Planète (1961–1972), was a state of mind  urging the conquest of new intellectual realms that mingled the rational and the fantastic with science, history and philosophy. Certain elements of context conjure up the broad social importance of a key period surfing a wave of confidence in the advance of knowledge.  

The exhibition presents an extensive and diverse body of work that updates this approach in the light of contemporary issues and technological and scientific progress. Extravagant, hermetic, sensual, the works invite us to explore the residues of traditional, mythical or magical cultures, to probe modified states of consciousness, the limits of our sensory perceptions, the hidden codes of nature and the still indecipherable laws that govern the cosmos. 

Is it because they still retain a measure of mystery, that these works make us more sensitive to the strangeness of the world?

Exhibition produced as part of MuséoSciences, in partnership with the agnès b. endowment fund, le Frac Provence-Alpes-Côte d´Azur, le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains and the LaM.