In 2024, Lyon’s Biennial of Contemporary Art takes over the traditional MAC (Musée d’Art Contemporain) with a new exhibition venue: “Les Grandes Locos”.
The theme of this seventeenth biennial, “Les voix des fleuves – Crossing the water”, is defined as highlighting the relationships between people and/or their environment.
An opportunity for me to mix a few visitors, street-photo-style, with exhibition views.
Les Grandes Locos takes its name from a former technical center housing the trains of SNCF, the French national railway company.
These huge warehouses are set to become Lyon’s most important new cultural venue in the years to come.
Having already hosted the Nuits Sonores electronic music festival for the first time in 2024, they will now also host Lyon’s biennial contemporary art and dance festivals.
Since images are “worth 1,000 words”, here’s a short extract from my visit to the Grandes Locos exhibition.
Among the dozens of works on display, many are interactive or constitute experiences to be lived, where the spectacular sometimes rubs shoulders with the minimalist.
At Grandes Locos, “there’s no point in running, you’ve got to start on time” (French proverb), so allow at least 1/2 a full day to appreciate and/or understand all the works.
When the wise man shows the moon, the fool looks at the finger,” goes another famous proverb.
So we have to look beyond what we see, and consider the meaning of the sculpture that welcomes us: made from the forearm casts of women of different generations, it evokes the rights of women in contemporary society, between silence and revolt.
These outstretched fingers stand in stark contrast to the neon artwork in the vault of Les Grandes Locos, which advocates resilience and acceptance of one’s fate and destiny.
Among the works with a post #metoo message, Clara Lemercier Gemptel has collected testimonials from women who have experienced power and domination at work.
The most oppressive work in the Grandes Locos exhibition, the video mixes the din of a dry-cleaning line with speeches evoking physical or psychological suffering.
Other works with less obvious meaning allow the youngest visitors to take possession of them with carefree abandon, as here, amidst columns that evoke the destruction and war in Afghanistan…
Children are sometimes amazed or impressed, when they’re not literally transported… by certain works.
Artist Nefeli Papadimouli is interested in the relationship between bodies in communal space, creating fabric sculptures that performers sometimes inhabit.
Coming soon: exhibition views of the 17th Biennale d’Art de Lyon at the Musée d’Art Contemporain.
Discover the complete program of works presented at Grandes Locos (until January 5, 2025).
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