HUMPTY \ DUMPTY, Cyprien Gaillard’s new project for autumn 2022, is an exhibition in two parts, presented concurrently at the Palais de Tokyo and at Lafayette Anticipations.
At the core of this project is a reflection on time, its traces, its effects, and the relationships that we form with it. Inspired by our times, as Paris races to restore its most prestigious monuments and wipe away any traces of wear and tear in preparation for the Olympic Games, Gaillard reveals how the city is a fertile ground for the expression of entropy (of degradation, disorder, and unpredictability), and how, in return, humans tend to fight against this state.
In the margins, recesses, and spaces of dissent, the artist probes our desire for order, permanence, and consistency and uncovers the narratives of potential new equilibria. The title HUMPTY \ DUMPTY, drawn from an 18th century English nursery rhyme, popularised by the Lewis Carroll’s novel Through the Looking-Glass, refers to the egg-shaped character who has fallen from a wall and who, despite many attempts, is unable to return to his original state.
At the Palais de Tokyo, HUMPTY, the first chapter of the exhibition, brings together a selection of works shown in France for the first time as well as pieces by guest artists. Through the relationship between the body and architecture, abandoned territories, evocations of war, and invasive species, Gaillard depicts our connection to collapse and reconstruction, thereby revealing our obsession with the preservation of beings and the conservation of things, and the constant temptation to maintain or recapture a certain order in the world.
At Lafayette Anticipations, for the second chapter of the exhibition, DUMPTY, the artist gives new life to a work that has fallen into oblivion. A monumental sculpture installed since 1979 in the heart of Paris in the Quartier de l’Horloge, which was then under construction, this one-of-a-kind automaton consists of a man perched on a rock equipped with a sword and ashield. The last movements of the automaton took place in 2003, and it has remainedparalyzed ever since, gradually abandoned to a colony of pigeons and to erosion. CyprienGaillard proposes to bring it back to life and to work towards its rebirth. The artist resumesthe movements of this permanent battle with time, which, which he attempts tomake up for