Les Extatiques 2020

For this 3rd edition of Les Extatiques, ... artists take over the La Défense esplanade, from the Bassin Takis to the Fontaine Agam, around the theme of "Nothing to see".

Free exhibition in the public space (Esplanade de La Défense), open daily.

Artists in the program

1. Fabrice HYBER - Les amis
2. Julien BERTHIER - Pigeonner
3. Yue MINJUN - The Tao Laughter No. 4
4. Gilles BARBIER - L'œuvre boîte
5. Jacques VILLEGLE - Écrire peindre ! C'est plus que voir, écrire peindre c'est concevoir
6 Ivan NAVARRO - Mélusine
7 Héctor ZAMORA - Zig Zag
8 Paul ROUSTEAU - La Défense, les fragments de l'invisible
9. Carlos CRUS-DIEZ - Environnement de Transchromie Circulaire
10. Anne CLAVERIE - Arbrabra
11. Iván ARGOTE - Strenghtlessness

Les Extatiques 2020 - map of works on the Paris La Défense side

1. FABRICE HYBER – Friends, 2020

Fabrice HYBER

Fabrice Hyber is a protean artist who conceives his work as a gigantic rhizome that develops on a principle of echoes. Invariably starting from the practice of drawing and painting, he invests all modes of expression and constantly diffuses his work from one medium to another. For him, it's not the materiality of the work that matters, only its ability to trigger behavior.

The work for Paris La Défense

At Paris La Défense, the artist scattered small green men and women whose bodily orifices spout streams of water. These fountain-sculptures are the result of work begun over twenty years ago in response to a commission. e from the commune of Bessines (Deux Sèvres, France). Since then, L'homme de Bessines has travelled the world. This incredible expansion continues today with the invasion of the Takis basin by "Les amis", who tirelessly express, exchange and pour out their limpid moods.

FRIENDS, 2020
Mixed media
Set of different editions for a single composition
Courtesy Fabrice Hyber

See Fabrice Hyber's work at La Seine Musicale

2. JULIEN BERTHIER – Pigeon-holing, 2014-2020

Julien BERTHIER

A graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris, Julien Berthier began his career as a visual artist in the early 2000s. His mantra: "Don't leave the world in the hands of specialists". Julien Berthier remains true to this statement, employing mediums as varied as sculpture, drawing, video and photography. The artist creates objects - at once hyper-realistic and fictional - which he confronts with public space.

The work for Paris La Défense

Pigeons, city pests, are part of what we pretend not to notice in the urban landscape, no doubt out of laziness or disinterest. With "Pigeon-holing", the artist brings these birds back into the limelight. The animal is treated in bronze, the noble material par excellence of 19th-century animal sculpture. These hyperrealistic pigeon sculptures are then grafted onto other existing public sculptures with the same patina, offering them a temporary surplus of realism.

PIGEONNER, 2014-2020
Bronze, pigeon scale 1:1
One-off piece
Courtesy Galerie Georges-Philippe et Nathalie Vallois, Paris

3. YUE MINJUN - The Tao Laughter No. 4, 2012

YUE MINJUN

First noticed in 1999 when he took part in the Venice Biennale, Yue Minjun has since established himself as the most influential Chinese painter of his generation. The immutable model for all his paintings, Yue Minjun has adopted laughter as the central theme of his work. His faces, with their frank, massive laughter, show a mouth disproportionately open with laughter. This process is used to leave an indelible mark on the viewer, prompting him or her to reflect on what is being observed. The zygomatic muscles are so open that the eyes are closed.

The work for Paris La Défense

At Paris La Défense, the artist installs the sculpture The Tao Laughter n°4. The work's title is a reference to the Tao Tô King, the founding work of Taoism attributed to Lao Tzu (600 B.C.), in which it is suggested that laughter enables us to solve society's problems without pain or sorrow, and achieve inner peace. With references to both Chinese and Western cultures, these masterful sculptures challenge and question our relationship with society.

THE TAO LAUGHTER NO. 4, 2012
Stainless steel
One-off piece
Courtesy Templon, Paris - Brussels

4. GILLES BARBIER – The artwork box, 2018

Gilles BARBIER

Gilles Barbier has been exhibiting his work in France, Europe and the United States since 1994. Arriving in France at the age of twenty, he creates a window into a cosmos as singular as it is infinite. Gilles Barbier feeds a continuous flow of drawings and images with texts and tools for reflection. He is currently preparing a major retrospective based on the Dictionnaire project at the HAB in Nantes for 2021, as well as his twelfth solo show at Galerie GP & N Vallois this autumn.

The work for Paris La Défense

Here, the shark's fin is at once that which is partly hidden, that which slips between two waters, that which hunts. It's a graphic, cartoonish element, immediately recognizable and associated with the Pacific. Here, Gilles Barbier transforms the everyday object of the can opener into a shark ready to hunt art lovers and strollers on the grand esplanade of La Défense.

The artwork box, 2018-2020
Powder-coated aluminum, three elements
Edition of 3 + 2 E. A.
Courtesy Galerie Georges-Philippe et Nathalie Vallois, Paris

5. JACQUES VILLEGLE - Writing painting! It's more than seeing, writing painting is conceiving, 2020

Jacques VILLEGLÉ

Jacques Mahé de La Villeglé is one of the founding members of the Nouveaux Réalistes movement. In October 1960, he established himself first and foremost as a "captor" of torn posters, and as a theorist of the idea of giving them a second artistic life. From 1969 onwards, Villeglé devised a "socio-political alphabet". This alphabet is based on a simple principle: add to or substitute for each letter (except the J) one or more signs with a similar silhouette, spotted on metro corridors, posters, walls or elsewhere.

The work for Paris La Défense

For Les Extatiques, Jacques Villeglé proposed to run a large white graffiti in socio-political alphabet along one of the esplanade's staircases, using a quote inspired by the writer André Salmon: "Écrire! It's more than seeing, writing is conceiving".

WRITE PAINT! IT'S MORE THAN SEEING, WRITING PAINTING IS CONCEIVING.
ANDRÉ SALMON, 2020
Stencil, white paint
Courtesy Galerie Georges-Philippe et Nathalie Vallois, Paris

6. IVAN NAVARRO – Mélusine, 2020

Iván NAVARRO

Born under the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, Iván Navarro fled oppression for the United States. The artist uses light as his basic material. He transforms objects into electric sculptures and space through optical games. The process of mirroring offers perspectives that extend the gaze, taking it beyond a simple dimension, towards infinity, endless illusion...

The work for Paris La Défense

For Les Extatiques, Iván Navarro created a structure reminiscent of the traditional brick wells that punctuate the countryside. The work refers to the ancestral legends that have shaped the history of his country. The heroine of the eponymous medieval myth (Jean d'Arras, 1392), Mélusine, a hybrid creature half-woman half-water serpent, is condemned to haunt and watch over populations. In "Mélusine", the well seems to create an infinite underground luminous passageway, a metaphor for both escape and disappearance.

MÉLUSINE, 2020
Neon, mirror, one-way mirror, bricks, wood, metal, Plexiglas, wood, plywood, electricity
Courtesy Templon, Paris - Brussels

7. Héctor ZAMORA – Zig Zag, 2020

Héctor ZAMORA

Héctor Zamora is a Mexican artist who works in public spaces, both indoors and out. Zamora's work interrogates the exhibition space by creating site-specific ephemeral artworks that involve visitor participation. In a hidden way, his artistic practice reveals social, political and historical issues rooted in the sites chosen for his work. Both performance and artwork, Héctor Zamora's work functions as a dialogue in which art is both object and event.

The work for Paris La Défense

The ZIG ZAG pavilion offers a new architectural experience. Constructed with openwork terracotta bricks, which give transparency to the walls, it allows the summer breeze to enter, bringing its breath. Permeability is key; the visual pattern of the bricks multiplies their effect when the walls overlap, the silhouettes of bodies move through these walls, and the shadows retrace and reconstruct the pattern of the floor. It's a novel experience reminiscent of modern tropical architecture, and in the middle of the La Défense esplanade, it embodies a playful freshness that invites us to relax and lose ourselves in its walls.

ZIG ZAG, 2020
Openwork brick walls
Edition 1/5
Courtesy Héctor Zamora & Albarrán Bourdais, Madrid

8. PAUL ROUSTEAU - La Défense, fragments of the invisible, 2020

Paul ROUSTEAU

Photographer Paul Rousteau radically rejects technically perfect photography. He explores photographic flaws and errors, while revisiting the joyful iconography of his childhood. Like playful experiments, often flouched and overexposed, his enigmatic works draw the eye with their washes of luminous color, as seen through a kaleidoscope or flotting in the soft haze of a waking dream.

The work for Paris La Défense

At La Défense, the sky is the limit. Out of the ground, in search of grandeur, he overhangs nature, settles on the clouds, mingles in its aerial façades. His ignorance bumps up against glass walls. Faced with the limits of the visible, his truths sag. For nature still reigns. Changing, it imposes its mystery on us. Immaterial, air and light sculpt and reveal our reality. And it gives us a glimpse, by snippet, of its fragments of the invisible.

Some references
Kinetic Art
René Magritte
Jacques Tati, "Playtime
Les Epoux Delaunay
The trompe-l'oeil
LA DÉFENSE, FRAGMENTS OF THE INVISIBLE, 2020
Photography
Edition of 1/5 + 2 EA
Credits Paul Rousteau. Courtesy Paul Rousteau

9. CARLOS CRUS-DIEZ – Circular Transchromic Environment, 1965-2017

Carlos CRUZ-DIEZ

A French artist of Venezuelan origin, Carlos Cruz-Diez has lived and worked in Paris since the 1960s. He is considered one of the leading exponents of optical and kinetic art. His research has made him one of the 20th century's leading thinkers on color. Carlos Cruz-Diez's discourse is based on the chromatic phenomenon, conceived as an autonomous reality that evolves in space and time, according to visitors' movements. His works can be found in the permanent collections of prestigious institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Tate Modern in London and the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris.

The work for Paris La Défense

Carlos Cruz-Diez's "L'Environnement de Transchromies" is a shimmering, participatory, circular structure in which viewers are invited to rediscover their natural or urban environment. The work takes external reality into account, transforming it by subtracting color through the intermingling of transparent lamellae.

CIRCULAR TRANSCHROMY ENVIRONMENT, 1965-2017
Steel and glass
One-of-a-kind piece
Courtesy Galerie Philippe Gravier, Paris

10. ANNE CLAVERIE – Arbrabra, 2013

ANNE CLAVERIE

Anne Claverie developed a taste for raw materials at an early age, and for making manufacturing processes visible. The principle of her work then became obvious: to recover, accumulate and transform industrial or natural materials. For several years now, her monotheistic work has included the adoration of rubber, which has become an object of her fascination. The tire, an apparently difficult material, is tamed, as if ennobled by the artist who sees in its striations a living material, "a texture of skin or the lines of a hand".

The work for Paris La Défense

This mutant tree is the fruit of a hybrid alliance of tire and metal. It takes root with the strength and vigor of a leafless natural tree, transfiguring the industrial materials with which it is clad. Its reptilian skin, alive and disquieting, intrigues, between attraction and repulsion.

ARBRABRA, 2016
Metal structure, tire
One-off piece
Courtesy Collection Fondation Villa Datris

11. Iván ARGOTE – Strenghtlessness, 2014-2020

Iván ARGOTE

Iván Argote's performances, videos, films, sculptures, collages and installations in public spaces question the way we relate to others, to the state, to heritage and to traditions. Argote makes both political and sociological critiques and proposals, using tenderness, emotions and humor as subversive tools with which he attempts to generate spaces for dialogue outside of polarization and confrontational rhetoric.

The work for Paris La Défense

In 1830, Mehemet Ali, Viceroy of Egypt, strongly encouraged by Baron Taylor and Jean-François Champollion, offered Charles X and France the two obelisks erected in front of Luxor Temple as a token of friendship. One of the obelisks was then removed and shipped to France (located on today's Place de la Concorde in Paris), while the 2nd, which remained in Luxor, was officially returned to Egypt by President François Mitterrand in 1981. In return for this gift, Louis-Philippe I presented them with a copper clock in 1845, which today adorns Saladin's citadel in Cairo. The clock never worked, however, as it was damaged in transit.

Intervening in a humorous and slightly naive way on this monument, Argote cancels out its symbols of power and identity. The artist's creative process uses strategies such as disobedience and fantasy to challenge us to change the way we see and conceive of political activism, Western domination and centers of power, in order to point out their absurdity and pretense.

STRENGHTLESSNESS, 2014-2020
Concrete, metal, wood and gold leaf
Single piece + 1 EA
Courtesy Iván Argote & Galerie Perrotin