Ceysson & Bénétière

It is impossible to discuss Gloria Friedmann's work without mentioning the central role given to fauna, whether it is tropical karaoke or the human-animal figure so often present in contemporary societies. She has consistently evoked the fragile balance of this ancestral cohabitation. Her iconic performances from the 1990s, which blend human and animal, were almost prophetic of today’s environmental concerns. Éric Troncy writes on this subject: "The “encounters” staged by these “living paintings”, majorettes and rabbits on a highway rest area, oxen and shopping carts in front of a supermarket, offer images of a paradoxical and fundamentally surrealist moment. They cast a unique light on Friedmann's entire body of work, highlighting both its surreal and spectacular nature, its inherent “photogenic” quality, and its ambition to explore the world's reality by exploring its most inaccessible, improbable side."

Gloria Friedmann's work is to be understood as a whole, a comprehensive and resolutely evolving artistic approach. Over the decades, she has built a continuous dialogue between humanity, the animal world, and nature, questioning the complex and fragile relationships that connect them. Les Magiciens du temps d’arrêt offers an opportunity to discover not only the emblematic works of her career but also her latest creations. The exhibition bears witness to her persistent commitment and the depth of her sculptural research, as well as her perpetual quest for new forms and materials to enrich a poetic discourse on life and its coexistence with the contemporary world. Gloria Friedmann thus continues her exploration of the tensions between the ephemeral and the immutable, the artificial and the natural, opening an essential dialogue on our relationship with time and our environment.