Solar Bodies at Musée d'Orsay / Paris

Solar Bodies curated by Ø

June 21st 2018

Participating Artists: Daiga Grantina, Pakui Hardware (Neringa Cerniauskaite and Ugnius Gelguda), Young Girl Reading Group (Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė)


Musée d'Orsay
1 Rue de la Légion d'Honneur
Paris
France







Pakui Hardware, On Demand III, 2017, and On Demand, 2018. Courtesy of the artist and EXILE, Berlin

Pakui Hardware, On Demand III, 2017, Heat-treated Plexiglas, water, Sky Blue edible pigment, UV print on PVC Pentaprint film, ceramics, silicone and clay (detail). Courtesy of the artist and EXILE, Berlin

Pakui Hardware, On Demand III, 2017, Heat-treated Plexiglas, water, Sky Blue edible pigment, UV print on PVC Pentaprint film, ceramics, silicone and clay (detail). Courtesy of the artist and EXILE, Berlin

Pakui Hardware, On Demand, 2018, heat-treated PVC film, files from NASA digital archives, tripods, snake-arms, clamps, silicone, chia seeds, latex, latex rubber, PVC rubber. Courtesy of the artist and EXILE, Berlin




Pakui Hardware, On Demand, 2018, heat-treated PVC film, files from NASA digital archives, tripods, snake-arms, clamps, silicone, chia seeds, latex, latex rubber, PVC rubber. Courtesy of the artist and EXILE, Berlin

Pakui Hardware, On Demand, 2018, heat-treated PVC film, files from NASA digital archives, tripods, snake-arms, clamps, silicone, chia seeds, latex, latex rubber, PVC rubber. Courtesy of the artist and EXILE, Berlin


Daiga Grantina, In-Contra-Counter (after Courbet), 2018, plaster, linen, pigment, plastic, metal, foam. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Joseph Tang, Paris

Daiga Grantina, In-Contra-Counter (after Courbet), 2018, plaster, linen, pigment, plastic, metal, foam (detail). Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Joseph Tang, Paris

Daiga Grantina, In-Contra-Counter (after Courbet), 2018, plaster, linen, pigment, plastic, metal, foam (detail). Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Joseph Tang, Paris

Daiga Grantina, In-Contra-Counter (after Courbet), 2018, plaster, linen, pigment, plastic, metal, foam (detail). Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Joseph Tang, Paris

Young Girl Reading Group (Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė), YGRG154: Body Heat, 2018, and glands expand mouth waters, so hot rn., 2018

Young Girl Reading Group (Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė), glands expand mouth waters, so hot rn. , 2018, hand woven and shaved woollen carpet, vinyl curtain. Courtesy of the artist. 
Young Girl Reading Group (Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė), YGRG154: Body Heat, 2018, HD Video, 17:11 (screenshot). Courtesy of the artist.



Young Girl Reading Group (Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė), YGRG154: Body Heat, 2018, HD Video, 17:11 (screenshot). Courtesy of the artist.

Young Girl Reading Group (Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė), YGRG154: Body Heat, 2018, HD Video, 17:11 (screenshot). Courtesy of the artist.

Young Girl Reading Group (Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė), YGRG154: Body Heat, 2018, HD Video, 17:11 (screenshot). Courtesy of the artist.








A contemporary counterpoint to Baltic symbolism.
The summer solstice is a key moment of earthly breathing, an instant to become aware of the cosmos that surrounds us and of bodies that inhabit it.
Through a majority of newly produced works, the opulent ballroom of Musée d’Orsay becomes a dance floor for solar bodies. Choreographed by three artists from the Baltic scene, the space is punctuated by Pakui Hardware's biomorphic devices, Daiga Grantina’s anthropomorphic landscape, and a video on body heat by Young Girl Reading. The all project is connected by Norman Orro’s atomic graphic design.
Although the invited artists are not directly inspired by the Symbolism of their predecessors, they nevertheless share a certain “subjective distortion” advocated by Jean Moréas in his “Manifesto of Symbolism” in 1886. Matter expands as much as time, which is apprehended in all its complexities. In a moment that seems to be as pivotal as troubling as the turn of the last century, the artists embrace a similar equivocal relation to their time; a sceptical attraction for a world where the division between nature and culture disappears, where human and non-human intertwine, synthetic and organic become one. But, far from the construction of a national identity supported by Baltic artists at the dawn of 20th century, the creators of SOLAR BODIES embody a fluid and moving identity, as elusive as the flames that spring from all sides during this solstice celebration.

A project organized by Ø for Musée d’Orsay. As part of the solstice celebration, parallel event of the exhibition “Wild souls. Symbolism in the Baltic States” (10.04 – 15.07.18)

Supported by Estonian Ministry of Culture, Outset Estonia, ADAGP and Copie Privée, Ars Ultima – Stein & Guillot Art Foundation, mécène.


Ø is a curatorial collective founded in 2014 under the French Association Law of 1901 in order to foster projects between art historians and emerging artists.

Photography: Nobuyoshi Takagi, Ugnius Gelguda and Sophie Crépy-Boegly. All images copyright and courtesy of the artists