Théo Mercier

Théo Mercier is a French sculptor and director who lives and works between Paris and Mexico City. Proclaiming a formal freedom in his practice, he strives to deconstruct the mechanisms of history, objects and representations in which he finds harmonious contradictions. He is by turns researcher, collector and artist, reflecting at the intersection of anthropology, geopolitics and tourism.
Mercier, who was a resident at the Villa Medicis in 2013 and was nominated for the Marcel Duchamp Prize in 2014, has had solo exhibitions at the Havana Biennial (Cuba), the Fondation Lambert (Avignon), Museo El Eco (Mexico), Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature (Paris), Museum of Contemporary Art (Marseille), Lieu Unique (Nantes) and Tri Postal (Lille). His work has been included in numerous group exhibitions, including Centre Pompidou (Paris), Hamburger Banhof (Berlin), Jameel Arts Centre (Dubai) and Palacio Bellas Artes (Mexico). Mercier moved from a “white cube” to a “black box” practice, directing Du futur faisons table rase (2014), Radio Vinci Park (2016, co-directed with François Chaignaud), La Fille du collectionneur (2017) and Affordable Solution for Better Living (2018, (2018, co-directed with Steven Michel), which won the Silver Lion at the 2019 Venice Biennale, BIG SISTERS (2020, co-directed with Steven Michel) and OUTREMONDE, a series of living landscapes made entirely of sand sculptures (from 2021). His performances have been shown at Nanterre-Amandiers, the Menagerie de verre (Paris), Usine C (Montreal), The Invisible Dog Art Center (New York), Actoral Festival (Marseille), Dampfezentrale (Bern), Vooroit Art Center (Ghent) or Vidy (Lausanne).