View of the exhibition Metamorphosis. Art in Europe Now, Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris, 2019. Kris Lemsalu, So Let us Melt and Make no Noise, 2017. © Kris Lemsalu. Picture © Thibaut Voisin.
View of Evgeny Antufiev's installation created for the exhibition Metamorphosis. Art in Europe Now, Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris, 2019. © Evgeny Antufiev. Picture © Thibaut Voisin.
View of the exhibition Metamorphosis. Art in Europe Now, Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris, 2019. mirrorMirage, collection Morning Mist, 2011. © YMER&MALTA / Benjamin Graindorge. Picture © Luc Boegly.
View of the exhibition Metamorphosis. Art in Europe Now, Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris, 2019. © George Rouy. Picture © Luc Boegly.
View of the exhibition Metamorphosis. Art in Europe Now, Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris, 2019. Marion Verboom, Achronies' series, 2019. © Marion Verboom. Picture © Luc Boegly.
View of the exhibition Metamorphosis. Art in Europe Now, Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris, 2019. Charlie Billingham, Snake Charmers, 2019, Goody Grabber, 2017, Untitled, 2013-2017. © Charlie Billingham. Picture © Luc Boegly.
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Exhibition overview

Metamorphosis. Art in Europe Now presents the diversity of voices and vitality of exchanges animating the vast European artistic scene.

Artists and contributors of the exhibition:
  • Gabriel Abrantes,
  • Magnus Andersen,
  • Evgeny Antufiev,
  • Charlie Billingham,
  • Kasper Bosmans,
  • Formafantasma,
  • Benjamin Graindorge,
  • Miryam Haddad,
  • Klára Hosnedlová,
  • Nika Kutateladze,
  • Piotr Łakomy,
  • Lap-See Lam,
  • Kostas Lambridis,
  • Kris Lemsalu,
  • George Rouy,
  • John Skoog,
  • Tenant of Culture,
  • Alexandros Vasmoulakis,
  • Marion Verboom,
  • Jonathan Vinel,
  • Raphaela Vogel

The exhibition in detail

Over the course of a year, the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain team set out to meet with young artists from all over Europe, beyond the borders of the European Union. This ambitious research project brought the team to 29 countries, discovering over 200 artists chosen from a preliminary selection of nearly 1,000 creators. Launched without any preconceived ideas or guiding principles, this search culminated in a deliberately restricted selection of 21 artists from 16 countries, who use painting, sculpture, fashion, design or film as their modes of expression. Born between 1980 and 1994, they came of age after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and together demonstrate the extraordinary dynamism of the continent’s artistic scene. Most of them have studied or live in a country other than where they were born, showing the very real mobility that exists within the European cultural space. For the vast majority, this is their first exhibition in an international institution.

The title of the exhibition was inspired by the various metamorphoses underlying the work of these artists. Their frequently fragmented aesthetics reveal an interest in hybridization, collage, and archaeology. Drawing on legacies, folkloric traditions, and collective memory, they have adopted techniques such as casting, ceramics, and embroidery. Inspired by the past, their works display keen attention to issues of the present. At the center of their work processes are major contemporary preoccupations, metamorphosed: the preservation and recycling of materials, new takes on historical and cultural heritage, and the reexamination of identity constructions. The resulting works, lyrical, refined, or savage, reveal a strong desire to hybridize identities, cultures, and forms of expression. With poetry, fantasy, and humor, this new generation of artists is helping create the face of today’s and tomorrow’s Europe.

On the ground floor, the artists demonstrate an interest in questions of architecture and shared space, both public and private. Their works have been conceived in close relation with the architecture of the building housing them. On the floor below, the artists focus on the human figure and private space. The works present a portrait of humanity with shifting identities, in a world that is itself in transformation. The final room, the exhibition’s climax, features artists proposing a dialogue, either spiritual or more secular, with the nonhuman world, and more specifically, with animal figures.

Curator: Thomas Delamarre assisted by Sidney Gérard
Associate curator: Leanne Sacramone assisted by Sonia Digianantonio
Conservation Assistant: Beatriz Forti and Alix Laraignou

Visite de l'exposition
04:12

Jeunes Artistes en Europe. Les Métamorphoses

Visite de l'exposition