At the Edge of the Worlds (Le Bord des mondes)

Palais de Tokyo‘s new season starts with the exhibition At the Edge of the Worlds (Le Bord des mondes) which presents research by visionaries who have gone beyond the confines of art’s traditional territory.

At the same time the Museum is honoring that major artistic figure, Takis (b.1925, Athens) who constantly sought to identify and capture invisible forces by combining art and science. And Bouchra Khalili (b.1975, Casablanca) winner of the SAM Award for Contemporary Art 2013, explores the narrative potentialities that gave rise to the stories and legends of revolution in postcolonial Algeria.

Answering Marcel Duchamp‘s (1887 – 1968) question: “Can one make works of art which are not ‘of art’?,” the exhibition the Edge of the Worlds explores the many fields of artistic creation and welcomes creative people from outside of the art world whose work would seem to belong to it through its depth, its beauty and its singularity.

From the giant beach creatures of Theo Jansen (b.1948, The Hague) to Kenji Kawakami‘s (b.1946, Nara) surprising “chindogu” or Carlos Espinosa’s (b.1924, Antofagasta) poetical cloud traps, the exhibition encourages viewers to go down forbidden paths and bridge the gap that normally separates artistic creation and inventiveness. Situated at the edges of art and invention, the exhibition shatters the borders between worlds, between identified artistic territories and parallel worlds outside of the art system, by exploring the fertile precipice that can bring them together.

Around thirty creators – most of whom come from outside the field of art – develop visions and ideas that through their sheer beauty could certainly belong to it. Neither outsider nor naïve artists, no more than they are eccentric, these free spirits explore unknown forms and refresh our gaze, beyond cannons and disciplines. These are like so many stories that, through their originality and inventiveness, renew our attention to the mysterious zones of creation, expressed in its most audacious form. Here, experience, reinvention and the overcoming of divisions prevail.