BAD TIMING

Former Villa Medici fellow in 2013-2014, artist and director Théo Mercier returns ten years later to the venue that marked a decisive turning point in his artistic career to present BAD TIMING. This solo exhibition will take place in the interior and exterior spaces of Villa Medici , as well as during a performance highlight in September 2023.

From the outset, Théo Mercier’s proposed exhibition scenario seemed set. A shower of cars has crashed into the Piazzale of the Villa Medici. Facing the ground and with open wings, these wounded birds of carriage let out the last breaths of a barely audible musical radio. Further on, a series of sculptures of bronze chairs, melting in the sun, can be seen here and there in the building. Distressed, deformed, crushed or torn between the weight of a heavy stone and the suction of a helium balloon stretched to the zenith, these sculptures point the way to an enigma that will find its solution in the interior spaces of Villa Medici.

Sheltered from the melancholy of the sky, it is in the exhibition rooms leading to the ancient cistern that Théo Mercier stages the subterranean resolution of this dystopian situation, drawing inspiration from the ancient tradition of the Palaces of Memory. In this space, he presents hybrid installations made up of used household appliances and amputated marble sculptures from the Villa Medici collections. Tied together by various shibari techniques, this new series expresses the artist’s sadism and enjoyment in dealing with the flamboyant residues of the past and the post-industrial residues of contemporary chaos.

Performance: Radio Vinci Park by Théo Mercier and François Chaignaud

Saturday , September 16: 10:00 pm
Sunday, September 17: 9:30 pm
Location: I Granai Shopping Centre – Underground parking lot

Event on reservation at this link.

Théo Mercier and François Chaignaud will present in Rome the show Radio Vinci Parkas part of the Short Theater 2023 festival and with the support ofHermès.

From John Dowland and Henry Purcell to Michael Nyman, via the great classics, Radio Vinci Park features a disturbing ritual of « motor-mechanical » biker wrestling, a veritable dance within an urban setting, bringing Short Theater to a place rarely frequented by artistic itineraries – a parking lot in Roma70, a residential neighborhood on the outskirts of the city.

The movements of choreographer and singer François Chaignaud clash with the violent roar of engines produced by stuntman Cyril Bourny, contrasting with the harmonious grace of Baroque music played live by harpsichordist Marie-Pierre Brébant. Three figures revealing three different relationships between body and machine, in a ritual that, halfway between the act of domestication, the dance of seduction, abduction, duel and attack, gradually transforms the underground parking lot into an arena.

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