Paris
Pompidou Centre
1 Jul → 27 Jul 2020
From Wed to Mon from 11 am to 9 pm. Nocturnal Thu until 9 pm. Closed Tue.
What would you say to an innovative art form, at the heart of contemporary scientific questioning, that flirts with science fiction and alternative cultures? As part of "Mutations/Creations" at the Pompidou Centre, Jeremy Shaw is proposing a new immersive project. With no hierarchy, he draws on the psychedelic culture of the 60s and 70s, advances in neuroscience on the functioning of the brain and metaphysical questions, which he believes are fundamental to the way people function. Pompidou's exhibition presents the artist's work, with his new installation, Phase Shifting Index, at the centre. A visual and sonic work, it synthesizes all of Shaw's previous installations and research, as well as his ambition to immerse the viewer more intensely. The visitor, in the dark and high above, is confronted by seven screens that project groups of dancers from different eras. Their ritual-like movements eventually synchronize into a collective ecstasy, until they burst and disfigure. Shaw's work, halfway between science and mysticism, dissolves the limits of image and sound, questions a post-human era and confuses the spectator, torn between ecstasy and fear. As a large, immersive installation, Jeremy Shaw's exhibition is conceived as "a fuzzy map of human aspirations to transcendence," in the artist's words.