Palais de Tokyo

City Prince/sses

Dhaka, Lagos, Manila, Mexico City and Tehran

21 Jun - 08 Sep 2019

Installation view
CITY PRINCE/SSES
Dhaka, Lagos, Manila, Mexico City and Tehran
21 June – 8 September 2019

Curator: Hugo Vitrani
Associate curator: Fabien Danesi
Scenographer: Olivier Goethals

The exhibition City Prince/sses is presented as an imaginary, multiple and complex city, without borders, messy, staggering and creative: an unpredictable laboratory, which is always in motion and being (re)constructed. Visual artists, creators, fashion designers, experimenters, tattooists, musicians: a good fifty artists are presented without any geographical grouping, mostly via new productions and in situ interventions.

DHAKA, LAGOS, MANILA, MEXICO CITY and TEHRAN are expressions of a tissue of contradictions, as seen in their saturated traffic which coexists with digital networks which supposedly work fluidly. Quite clearly, these megacities are very different from one another. Their cultural, political and social singularities teem with numerous narratives which are all side-tracks providing glimpses into their identities, devoid of anything that could be univocal.

Between skyscrapers and shacks, urgency and patience, megacities are undergoing a chaotic expansion, mingling transfers of capital with technological connexions in financial centres, generating urban margins with numerous inequalities. This vast, disorderly movement transforms cities into ceaseless work sites, favouring imaginary deviations. The artists which then emerge are thus the flâneurs of the 21st century, the hackers of our responses to an urban environment which is often functional and standardized.

Raw and head-spinning hangings, mysterious landscapes, luminous or opaque zones, backrooms and traps: the presentation of the show has been conceptualised by the architect Olivier Goethals, according to the rhythms of day and night, from profusion to desaturation, alternating between monographic zones and terrains for encounters. He has elaborated an architectural pathway which reveals and accentuates the lines of force in the building, which is here being envisaged as an immense common area.

With: Aderemi Adegbite, Mehraneh Atashi, Shishir Bhattacharjee, Biquini Wax EPS, Britto Arts Trust*, Luciano Calderon, Chelsea Culprit, Ndidi Dike, Doktor Karayom, Ema Edosio, Kadara Enyeasi, Falz, Dex Fernandez, Dina Gadia, Betzabé García, David Griggs, Ha.Mü, Timmy Harn, La Havi, Amir Kamand, Hoda Kashiha, Lulu**, Tala Madani, Farrokh Mahdavi, Pow Martinez, Arash Nassiri, Leeroy New, Emeka Ogboh, Wura-Natasha Ogunji, Adeola Olagunju, Ashfika Rahman, Mahbubur Rahman, Fernando Palma Rodríguez, John Jayvee del Rosario et Maine Magno (Urban Decay Planning), Bárbara Sánchez-Kane, Reetu Sattar, Mamali Shafahi, Reza Shafahi, Justin Shoulder, Mohammad Shoaib, Manuel Solano, Newsha Tavakolian, Stephen Tayo, Tercerunquinto, Traición***, WAFFLESNCREAM, Maria Jeona Zoleta, Zombra...

* Britto Arts Trust is a collective founded by Tayeba Lippi and Mahbubur Rahman: feat. Tapan Das, Promotesh Das Pulak, Ahmed Hossain, Rafiqul Islam, Lutfun Nahar, Najmun Nahar Keya, Yasmin Jahan Nupur, Jewel A Rob, Anisuzzaman Sohel.

** Lulu is an independant space founded by Martin Soto Climent and Chris Sharp: feat.Yuji Agematsu, Lorena Ancona, Lucas Arruda, Michael Berryhill, Juliette Blightman, Christian Camacho, Nina Canell, Martin Soto Climent, Josef Dabernig, Miho Dohi, Ann Cathrin November Høibo, Frieda Toranzo Jaeger, Ian Kiaer, Ryan Nord Kitchen, Jiří Kovanda, Ella Kruglyanskaya, Jochen Lempert, José Antonio Suárez Londoño, Jenine Marsh, Simon Dybbroe Møller, Kate Newby, Aliza Nisenbaum, Scott Olson, Lisa Oppenheim, Santiago de Paoli, Matt Paweski, Manfred Pernice, Daniel Rios Rodriguez, Willem de Rooij, Victoria Roth, Lin May Saeed, Anna Schachinger, Shana Sharp, Michael E. Smith, John Smith, Melanie Smith, Pádraig Timoney, Hayley Tompkins, Patricia Treib, Lucía Vidales, Ambera Wellmann, Allison Katz & Camilla Wills, Lea von Wintzingerode, B. Wurtz.

*** Traición is an independant collective founded by Alberto Bustamante, Lucia Anaya, Pepe Romero & Diego Jiménez: feat. Marcel Alcalá, Max Ammo, Andonella, Paula Assadourian, Victor Barragán, Cute Brute, Persian Circumcision, Maria Conejo, Chelsea Culprit, Daniel Díaz, Rafa Esparza, Inés Estrada, Mohammed Fayaz, Fersan, Diego Gómez, Sergio Hernández, Jovan Israel, Rachel Levit, Rudy Loewe, Luxiano31, So Me, Miguel, Julián Morales, Yego Muñoz, Shalva Nikvashvili, Alejandro Núñez, Sean O’Connor, Ian O’Phelan, El Chico Cabello De Pan, Mariano Pascual, Maldito Perrito, Suricato Quintero, Radriguez, Miguel Rual, Sangree, Skiff, Sabor Suave, Santee Alley Trade, Carmela Tzigana, Valleiyey, Lorena Vega, Nah Wah, Zombra.

Palais Magazine #29 will provide the possibility to dive into or contextualise the creations presented in the exhibition, through the contributions of thinkers, critics, curators, artists, poets, researchers... A mix of voices and visions which will mean being able better to hone in on the creation coming from this era of megacities and urban humanity.