Emmanuel Perrotin Gallery — About — Slash Paris

After placing zebras on snowy peaks and ostriches and donkeys in a boat floating gently on the Mediterranean Sea, Paola Pivi now presents polar, brown and grizzly bears in the very same room through which white sheep, a white Shetland pony and other white animals wandered in the performance Interesting, for the opening of her show No problem, have a nice day, in May 2006. This time the bears are neither alive nor real: they are hyper-realistic reproductions of romantic and impressive bear rugs. Yes, the kind of rug that can be found in log cabins across the Northwest Territories of Canada, or pride of place in the living rooms of elderly hunters. This new installation of 25 white, brown and black bear rugs, What goes round — art comes round, took more than two years and three countries in the making.

Visitors are welcomed to the exhibition by two new lamp-sculpture-lamps in the lobby. These are composed of more than one hundred glass vases — in all different shapes, colours and sizes — as well as golf balls and silver chains. A further two new lamp-sculpture-lamps are to be found in the next room. This time hundreds of luxurious miniature reproductions of famous designer chairs, manufactured by Vitra, are suspended in mid air around a light bulb.

And for the grand finale, a work of art produced by 2 pairs of hands: those of Paola Pivi and New Zealander Dylan Horrocks. Paola came up with the concept and Dylan drew the 10-metre-long, single paper illustration of a large passenger airplane, flying upside down, with passengers sitting on the ceiling and the luggage compartments, fighting, drinking, washing clothes, playing tennis, abusing themselves, celebrating a marriage, while the pilot throws paper airplanes at a deranged stewardess. Dylan Horrocks is a collaborator Paola chose carefully after 10 years of research. They met in 2009 when she was looking for a cartoon artist to draw the invitation card for her performance I wish I am fish: an airplane in flight, with its 84 seats occupied by goldfish passengers, each one swimming — while flying — in classic round glass goldfish bowls.