PRESENTATION: Elmgreen & Dragset-Bonne Chance

Collaborating since 1995, Elmgreen & Dragset have redefined the exhibition format by conceiving temporary architectures and life-size models of public and private spatial settings that seem strangely incongruous within an art institution. Rather than considering their artworks as a collection of static objects in a neutral space, the artists see each individual work as a part of a bigger story, taking on a new life every time it is shown in a different context.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Centre Pompidou Metz Archive

Elmgreen & Dragset in their solo exhibition “Bonne Chance” brings together both existing and recent sculptures in site-specific constellations, thereby setting the stage for new narratives to unfold. These installations will replicate common urban settings that most of us come across regularly in our daily lives, but rarely in a museum context. The environments appear mostly desolate, with occasional life-like silicone figures engaged in various activities. As the visitors wander through the spaces of Centre Pompidou Metz, they are invited to piece together various clues and imagine what might have happened or what is about to happen here. In this way, the audience becomes performers themselves, taking on the role of a detective, an uninvited guest, or an intruder. In addition to the installations within the galleries, occasional live elements will be integrated at random times throughout the duration of the show, especially during the opening weekend and in October during Paris+ by Art Basel. Infused with the artists’ typical pathos and subversive humor, Bonne Chance will present a familiar yet unsettling world where the mundane is re-choreographed to become extraordinary. From the start of the exhibition, Elmgreen & Dragset disorient our spatiotemporal coordinates by turning the outside inside and the inside out. In the midst of the Forum, they construct a full-scale apartment building “The One & the Many”, an unexpected structure that reshapes the usual experience of Shigeru Ban and Jean de Gastines’ architecture. The artists believe that every space, like Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, has a hidden alter-ego that they hope to reveal through alteration or displacement. In “The One & the Many” they recreated an East German social housing block, a so-called “plattenbau”, commonly seen in Berlin. Visitors can only see the apartments from the outside, with every window either covered by blinds or curtains. If the try ringing the doorbell, nobody will answer. In an old Mercedes estate car parked outside the building, the realistic figures of two men embrace in the trunk, surrounded by materials that suggest they might be art handlers. “The Outsiders” highlights the labor that usually goes on behind the scenes and that is not included in the social spectacle. In the Grand Nef, the limits between the fictional and the real become even less clear. Here, Elmgreen & Dragset have conceived a layout like a computer game where the player must navigate a labyrinthine space, never quite knowing what the next turn might bring. As visitors move throughout the show, they encounter scenes from various parts of life, including a theatre auditorium, a public restroom, a laboratory, a conference room, a morgue, a CCTV surveillance room and a desolate office landscape. Like in a dream (or a nightmare?) these ordinary situations follow an incoherent logic where normal rules no longer apply. Almost troublingly familiar, the scenarios start to create a sense of discomfort and unease. The uncanniness intensifies as the viewer comes across peculiar characters such as a young man sleeping on the conference room table in a bunny costume and a tightrope walker who has slipped and is now clinging onto the wire with just one hand. Throughout the exhibition, Elmgreen & Dragset seem to invite the viewers to take part in different experiences while also denying their full participation. For example, a pair of doors in the conference room are locked together with a long, interconnecting security chain, rendering their function utterly useless “Powerless Structures”. In the bathroom, we can attempt to wash our hands, but the sink pipes are conjoined and won’t drain properly “Marriage”. Not even the spinning wheel of fortune will bring us luck, since its mirror polished surface has no numbers, and the wheel never stops turning “Wheel of Fortune”. We can try our luck or we can try to take a short cut in Elmgreen & Dragset’s maze. However, unlike in a computer game, here it seems to be less about winning and more about redefining the rules. Providing a glimpse of hope, Bonne Chance explores how to find ways to create a game of change, rather than succumbing to the game of chance.

Photo: Elmgreen & Dragset, The One & The Many, 2010 & The Outsiders, 2020 © Studio Elmgreen & Dragset / Adagp, Paris, 2023

Info: Curator: Chiara Parisi, Centre Pompidou Metz, 1, parvis des Droits-de-l’Homme, Metz, France, Duration: 10/6/2023-1/4/2024, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Sun 10:00-18:00, Thu-Sat 10:00-19:00 (10/6-31/10/2023) & Tue-Sun 10:00-18:00 (1/11/2023-1/4/2024), www.centrepompidou-metz.fr/