Hadès Park
Solo show by Cédric Tanguy
Curated by Frédérique Gobert
May 6 - June 16, 2006
Galerie de la Friche, Friche la Belle de Mai, 13003 Marseille
In the epic world of Cédric Tanguy, Kermit the Frog leans against Edward Hopper’s bar counter, and “cutting-edge” flip-flops are casually placed on the floorboards of the Arnolfini couple’s bedroom from Van Eyck. His playground is the monumental stage of clichés borrowed from various eras and cultures. Whether it’s funerary art, baroque painting, cinema, advertising, or fashion, nothing escapes his curiosity. The artist dissects the arts of yesterday and those of more contemporary popular culture, “copy-creating” an original, sincere, and generous work. Anachronisms of all kinds set against an apocalyptic backdrop, bourgeois interiors completely tagged—everything is hybridized, customized, even a gramophone doubled with a David Guetta mixer, with the DJ himself seemingly wearing a powdered wig borrowed from Mozart. And in an instant, we find ourselves immersed in a mythical and mystical universe, unexpectedly familiar yet strangely so. A work imagined by an artist who adapts with ingenuity to every medium, whether it’s videos, blockbuster trailers, installations, quirky performances, or computer-enhanced photographs. For Hadès Park, this contemporary demiurge, armed with his mouse, humorously, cynically, and sometimes cruelly revisits the history of painting and photography in a grandiose setting. A gigantic blend at first glance, but where nothing is there by chance, and where the gaze delights in each discovery.
