PARIS.- In summer 2017, the ‘Dioramas’ exhibition at Palais de Tokyo offers a chance to discover an unexpected source of inspiration for contemporary artists: the diorama. This exhibition offers an original deconstruction of the history of seeing, bringing together history, the history of art, of cinema, of theatre and performance, of popular entertainment and circuses, and the history of science and technology.

Balzac called the diorama the “marvel of the century.” (1) Its invention in the 19th century indeed brought about an optical revolution and represented a turning point in the history of spectacle akin to the emergence of magic lanterns in the 17th century.

The exhibition explores three of the most important origins of the diorama. The first is Louis Daguerre’s original 1822 diorama, a large format painting animated by ingenious lighting tricks, as well as two types which are more familiar today: the naturalist and the ethnographic diorama, consisting of a glass case, a backdrop, and a selection of three-dimensional elements.

Daguerre’s diorama created the impression of movement through its lighting effects, thus offering the first means of suggesting the passage of time, and anticipating the invention of cinema. The other forms of the diorama meanwhile reconstituted places and events that could not otherwise be seen due to their spatial or temporal distances, producing a form of virtual reality. The diorama is emblematic of a golden age of illusion, and invites viewers to perceive for a short instant the artifice as the authentic.

Just as it gives form to our knowledge of the world, the diorama – etymologically ‘to see through’ or ‘to see across’ – also serves to depict the imaginary, with the theatre as one of its key origins. At once entertaining due to their spectacular character, pedagogical in their desire to tell a story, and highly plastic thanks to their painted backdrops and sculpted figures, dioramas attest to the talent and the surprising history of a range of often obscure characters. The artists, scientists, taxidermists, and architects who created them redefined the territory of art and its borders with science and technology.

Beyond the history of the diorama and its influence on major 20th and 21st century artists, ‘Dioramas’ invites visitors to immerse themselves in the hidden mechanisms of this dispositive in order to discover the stakes of knowledge and power hidden within it. Through an interrogation of the strategies of illusionism, the exhibition allows for a critical approach to the power of representation and opens up contemporary questions such as those surrounding ecological awareness or the visual legacy of colonialism.

Following up its 2015 exhibition, « Le Bord des Mondes » (‘At the Edge of the Worlds’), Palais de Tokyo continues with ‘Dioramas’ its exploration of the multifarious territories of art through an ongoing engagement with different fields of knowledge.

With: Marcelle Ackein, Carl Akeley, Sammy Baloji, Richard Baquié, Richard Barnes, Erich Böttcher, Jacques Bouisset, Cao Fei, Philippe Chancel, Joseph Cornell, Louis Daguerre, Giovanni D’Enrico, Caterina De Julianis, Mark Dion, Jean Paul Favand, Claude-André Férigoule, Joan Fontcuberta, Diane Fox, Emmanuel Frémiet, Ryan Gander, Isa Genzken, Arno Gisinger, Ignazio Lo Giudice, Robert Gober, Duane Hanson, Edward Hart, Patrick Jacobs, Arthur August Jansson, Anselm Kiefer, Fritz Laube, Pierre Leguillon, William Robinson Leigh, Charles Matton, Mathieu Mercier, Kent Monkman, Armand Morin, Lorenzo Mosca, Dulce Pinzón, Walter Potter, Georges Henri Rivière, G-M Salgé, Gerrit Schouten, Ronan-Jim Sévellec, Pierrick Sorin, Peter Spicer, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Fiona Tan, Tatiana Trouvé, Jeff Wall, Rowland Ward, Tom Wesselmann

Curators: Claire Garnier, Laurent Le Bon, Florence Ostende


(1) Honoré de Balzac, Letter to his sister Laure , 1822