Loris Gréaud
Introduction
Loris Gréaud, born 7 February 1979 in Eaubonne, is a French conceptual artist. His work draws on various media, including sculpture, architecture, performance, experimental music, video, and film. He claims to favor the notion of "project" over that of exhibition, considering that "only the idea and the project itself should be authoritative". According to Le Point, he conceives his works as global experiences inspired by the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk ''.''Selection of projects
Loris Gréaud came to the attention of international critics in 2005 with Silence goes more quickly when played backwards, a monographic project presented at Le Plateau – Frac Île-de-France.In 2008, he became the first artist to occupy the entire Palais de Tokyo in Paris with Cellar Door. The exhibition was described by Le Figaro as "a utopia," a hybrid experience between installation, concert, and performance. Le Monde described it as "a vast organism that breathes, with moments of illumination and failure" and "a journey from the most spectacular to the most conceptual " . The project then continued at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Kunsthalle Wien, the Kunsthalle Sankt-Gallen, and La Conservera.
In 2013, he presented a double exhibition entitled , jointly at the Louvre Museum and the Centre Pompidou—an unprecedented collaboration between these two institutions. The exhibition combined two monumental installations: at the Louvre, a veiled reinterpretation of Michelangelo's The Rebellious Slave, and at the Centre Pompidou, a performative sculpture in the form of a spiral staircase from which a man fell at regular intervals. The artist stated that he wanted to "invite the public to move from one work to the other and reflect on the path that connects them," adding: "The space between two works, the shift in thinking between them or between two exhibitions, is as important as the work itself ".
In 2015, he took over the entire Dallas Contemporary with The Unplayed Notes Museum. The opening took the form of a riot, choreographed by the artist and staged by actors, stuntmen, and museum security guards, plunging the museum into darkness and leaving the exhibition in ruins. According to W Magazine, the installation resembles a deliberate crisis of the museum format. Artnet News points out that "it is the traditional idea of exhibition that is being challenged and assaulted by impenetrable forces".
In 2016, his first solo exhibition on the West Coast of the United States was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art around the film Sculpt. The work, which plunges the audience into a world where the recording of thoughts becomes the subject of a global market, is presented in a 600-seat auditorium at the Bing Theater, emptied of all but one seat: the viewer is face to face with the film, which watches them as much as they watch it. Grazia describes the project as "the most mysterious film in the history of cinema," while The Guardian sees it as a "dematerialized social sculpture "
In 2017, he participated in the 57th Venice Biennale, where he reactivated an old Murano glass factory with The Unplayed Notes Factory. The installation, which included a ceiling of 1,000 smoked glass chandeliers made from hourglass sand, was described by Connaissance des arts as "the most beautiful presentation at the Biennale." Wallpaper* described an almost cinematic atmosphere: "Mist fills the main space of the installation, while the ceiling is adorned with 1,000 smoked glass chandeliers made from hourglass sand. They shine and darken to the rhythm of an eerie soundtrack reminiscent of a suspenseful scene in a science fiction film. Part of the factory is reserved for glassblowers who create the ceiling pieces using a century-old furnace. Once the pieces are made, they are hung on a conveyor belt, and from time to time, one of them falls and shatters on the floor. The glass is then collected and recycled to make new pieces ''"
In 2018, he presented Sculpt: Grumpy Bear, The Great Spinoff at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, centered on the cartoon character Grumpy Bear, played by Charlotte Rampling, who recites selected excerpts from novels or interviews by J.G. Ballard in a dystopian atmosphere.
In 2019, the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris commissioned a solo exhibition linked to the acquisition of his work Machine. The exhibition, entitled Glorius Read, takes the form of a hidden space within the permanent collections, accessible after calling a telephone number that says: "Hello? Loris Gréaud, GLORIUS READ, let's meet at the MAM, go down the stairs, push the wall as if you were pushing a door, and call me back". In the same year, the Kandinsky Library highlighted his editorial activity following the inclusion of his books and multiples in its documentary collection. In 2023, the Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art also added around thirty of his works to its collections.
In 2020, he inaugurated a permanent project at the Fundación Casa Wabi entitled The Underground Sculpture Park, consisting of some twenty emblematic works from his oeuvre, buried in the cactus gardens designed by Alberto Kalach, in keeping with the architecture of Tadao Ando. Beaux-Arts Magazine described the installation as "monumental yet almost invisible," "a gesture that poetically and radically questions the forms of art, its purpose, and the experience it generates".
In 2021, the Centre Pompidou acquired a series of sculptures entitled The Multiplication Table of Obsession and Irresolution, made from casts of classical works bearing the marks of the exhibition at the Dallas Contemporary. The series, consisting of four sculptures, is on display in a dedicated room until January 2022.
In 2023, the Petit Palais – Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris – invited him to design an in situ exhibition in dialogue with its permanent collections. Entitled Les Nuits Corticales, it combines olfactory installations, light sculptures, living organisms, and sound devices. Le Figaro notes that the exhibition "transforms the museum into a laboratory of immaterial experiences", while S-quive describes it as "an exhibition that awakens the senses and encourages exploration of uncertainty". Art Basel adds that "the artist captures the invisible to produce a holistic collective experience".
In October 2024, he conceived Cortical Palace: Une Nuit, Une Éternité, a unique concert by the band The Residents at the Théâtre du Châtelet, the first step and announcement of a permanent installation at the MAH — Musée d'art et d'histoire de Genève. Art Basel'' highlighted the uniqueness of this project, conceived as a performance "for a single unreleased track".
Selection of monographic exhibitions
Cortical Palace, One night, an eternity, Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Genève, Geneva, 2025.Cortical Palace, One night, an eternity, Théâtre du Châtelet, Art Basel Paris, Paris, 2024. Les nuits Corticales, Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, Paris, 2023./DɅV/, Domaine de Frapotel, Pontpoint, 2023.Soundtrack for a monograph, Miami Art Week, Catacombes de Paris, Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection, 2021—2023.Loris Gréaud + Yvon Lambert, BROCCOLI, Collection Lambert, Avignon, 2021.The Underground Sculpture Park, Fundación Casa Wabi, Puerto Escondido, 2020.Glorius Read, Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, Paris, 2019.The Original, The Translation, Centre Pompidou - Bibliothèque Kandinsky, Yvon Lambert Bookshop, 2019.Sculpt: Grumpy Bear, The Great Spinoff, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, 2018.Sir Loudrage, a still-life, Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin, 2018.Ladi Rogeurs, Galerie Max Hetzler, Paris, 2018.The Unplayed Notes Factory, 57th Venice Biennale, Murano, 2017.Sculpt, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 2016.The Unplayed Notes museum, Dallas Contemporary, Dallas, 2015.', Louvre Museum, Paris, 2013.- '
Collections
Loris Gréaud's works belong to numerous international collections, both private and public, including: The Centre Georges Pompidou, LACMA ; the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris ; The François Pinault Collection ; The Fondation Louis Vuitton ; The Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art, The Israel Museum ; The Margulies Collection ; The Goetz Collection ; The Rubell Family Collection, The Nam June Paik Art Center ; The Tel Aviv Museum of Art ; The Hermitage Museum ; and The Hirshhorn Museum.Research-based work
In 2010, Gréaud started work on The Snorks: A Concert for Creatures, inspired by his research on bioluminescence. He learned that it is the most widespread form of communication on earth, and that scientists observe what they describe as underwater "fireworks". His exchanges with researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology led him to consider stimulating the phenomenon with sound frequencies, and the idea of a concert for deep-sea creatures was developed. The experimental hip-hop group Antipop Consortium composed the music, along with the ANTARES scientific station and Professor Michel André for underwater broadcasting. The experiment resulted in a 2012 fictional film distributed in MK2 cinemas, in which Charlotte Rampling plays the role of the artist and David Lynch lends his voice as a scientific counterpoint.For The Unplayed Notes, he collaborated with the French National Centre for Scientific Research and musician Lee Ranaldo, who composed the soundtrack for an X-rated film shot with a thermal camera in partnership with Marc Dorcel Productions..
For Sculpt and its spin-off, Gréaud recorded artificial cloud formation at Stennis Space Center and worked with the CENIR at the Brain and Spinal Cord Institute to record his brain activity as he explored the mental architecture designed by Claude Parent. He enlisted the help of Miriam Chamani, priestess of the Voodoo Spiritual Temple in New Orleans, to summon the spirit of Papa Legba onto the 16mm reels that will be used to shoot part of the film.
In 2023, he worked with architect Dominique Perrault to create /dʌv/, a permanent work designed for the Villa Weil. Described as "a tomb for a dove," the work is installed in the former boiler room of Jean Dubuisson's architecture. and was inaugurated by the Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul-Malak
That same year, after many years of research and development, he presented the work Moratorium, in collaboration with Professor Michel André, as well as Physarium, developed with Dr. Audrey Dussutour, a specialist in Physarum polycephalum. These works are exhibited as part of his project Les Nuits Corticales at The Petit Palais.
Architecture(s)
Since 2008, Loris Gréaud has been conducting architectural work in parallel with his artistic practice. In Eaubonne, he designed a workshop-laboratory with Damien Ziakovic and Marc Dölger, conceived as a place for living, research, and experimentation. The site received the Property Award Europe in 2017.In 2014, he invited architect Claude Parent to collaborate with him on a second studio, described as a "brutalist bunker" made of concrete and topped with a glass roof designed to flood the space with natural light. This building was Parent's last project and is considered his magnum opus. A documentary directed by Marine Pérault, entitled Un univers fluide, will trace this collaboration. Wallpaper* included the building in its selection of the most beautiful brutalist architecture in the world.
Awards
2005 – Pernod Ricard Foundation Prize, Pernod Ricard Corporate Foundation.2014 – Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, Ministry of Culture, France.
2018 – The Contemporary Art Prize 2018, French Association of Friends of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
2022 – DNA Paris award “honorable mention” and IDA design award “bronze medal” with Marine Pérault, for her work The Unplayed Notes & The Underground Sculpture Park — 2012-2020.
Monographs
- Loris Gréaud, The Unplayed Note & The Underground Sculpture Park — 2012-2020, Hatje Cantz, 2022
- Loris Gréaud, Ladi Rogeurs I Sir Loudrage I Glorius Read, Galerie Max Hetzler Paris and Berlin, Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, Holzwarth Publications, 2019
- Ruth Direktor, Loris Gréaud, and Charlotte Rampling, Sculpt, Grumpy Bear: The Great Spinoff, Vol. 2, Gréaudstudio Editions, 2019
- Loris Gréaud, Sculpt: A Potential Continuity Editing, Vol. 1, Gréaudstudio Editions, 2016
- Loris Gréaud, Interzone: The Unplayed Notes Museum, Paris, Jannink Editions, 2015
- Loris Gréaud: Crossfading, Paris, Dis voir, 2015
- Christophe Ono-Di-Biot, Loris Gréaud: The Snorks: a concert for creatures, Gréaudstudio Editions, 2013
- Alain Seban, Marie-Laure Bernadac, Michel Gauthier, Jean-Luc Martinez, Loris Gréaud -, Louvre éditions, Centre Pompidou, 2013 Loris Gréaud: The Geppetto Pavilion, Gréaudstudio Editions, 2011
- Pascal Rousseau, Loris Gréaud: Cellar Door, Gréaudstudio Editions - JRP Ringier, 2011
- Halina Oszmianska & Marcin Turski, Loris Gréaud: Shelter / Bucminster Fuller: Synergetic Artist, Poznan Arts Stations Foundation, 2010
- Daniel Birnbaum, Loris Gréaud: Trajectories and Destinations, Volume 1, 2009
- Raimundas Malasauskas, Aaron Shuster, and Loris Gréaud, Loris Gréaud: Cellar Door, Zurich, JRP Ringier, 2008 Loris Gréaud: Nothing is true, everything is permitted, Onestar Press, 2007
- Jean Anouilh, Thomas Botoux, Pierre Denan, Didier Ghislain, Julie Geer, Karl Holmqvist, Fabrice Hyber, Philippe Langlois, Frank Smith, Tom McCarthy, Bernard Marcadet, Megumi Matsubara, Hiroi Ariyama, Olivier Michelon, Allison G. Moore, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Daniel Perrier, Pascal Rousseau, Igor Spanjol, Catherine Strasser, Mario Garcia Torres, Marc-Olivier Wahler, Anton Zeillinger, Loris Gréaud: EndExtend,'' Orléans, HYX, 2006
Filmography
Hors-prises, 2001. Written and directed by Loris Gréaud. Running time: 09:10 min. Cast: Dorothée Mireux, Raphaël Hunold. Original soundtrack: Loris Gréaud.Call me trim tab — The intergalactic draw, 2006. Written and directed by Loris Gréaud. Running time: 06:12 min. Cast: Michael Lonsdale. Original soundtrack: Loris Gréaud, Gerry M.
The Snorks, 2012. Written and directed by Loris Gréaud. Running time: 22:06 min. Cast: David Lynch, Charlotte Rampling. Original soundtrack: Antipop Consortium.
The Unplayed Notes, 2012. Written and directed by Loris Gréaud. Running time: 09:10 min. Cast: Tony Carrera, Astrid Legall. Original soundtrack: Lee Ranaldo. In association with Marc Dorcel Production and the CNRS.
Sculpt, 2016. Written and directed by Loris Gréaud. Narration: Nicolas Roux-Chaykine. Running time: variable. Cast: Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Rampling, Michaël Lonsdale, The Residents, Pascal Greggory, Abel Ferrara, Claude Parent, Voodoo Queen Priestess Miriam Chamani, Betty Catroux.Original soundtrack: The Residents in association with Cryptic Corporation.
Brotherhood, 2019. Written and directed by Loris Gréaud. Duration: 5 min 24 sec loop. Text by Nicolas Roux-Chaykine. Performers: Sophia. Original soundtrack produced with: Thomas Bonneau.
Grumpy Bear, 2018. Written and directed by Loris Gréaud. Running time: 09:10 min. Performers: Charlotte Rampling. Original soundtrack produced with: Thomas Bonneau.
Selected discography
Albums :- 1998: RISLO 001,
- 1998: RISLO x M2F 002,
- 1998: RISLO 003, Label Zero Zero Six,
- 2000: Fall-Winter 1999-00, Label Mars Assault,
- 2000: 001, Label Sixmengettingsick,
- 2000: 002, Label Sixmengettingsick,
- 2000: 003, Label Sixmengettingsick,
- 2001: Rislo 004, Tool Box Record,
- 2008: Cellar Door, EMI MUSIC,
- 2015: Crossfading, Dis-Voir, Whitney Museum of American Art,
- 2016: Sculpt, LACMA,
- 2017: The Sound of Factory, Gréaudstudio Editions, 57th Venice Art Biennial, 2018: Spores, Gréaudstudio Éditions,
- 2019: The Snorks'', Gréaudstudio Éditions,