Mémoires vives #2: 'Les Habitants' et 'Ballade pour une boîte de verre'

‘Mémoires vives’ is an exhibition in two parts ('Musings on a glass box' and 'Les Habitants') curated for the Fondation Cartier’s 30th birthday. ‘Musings on a glass box’ by interdisciplinary design and architecture studio Diller Scofidio + Renfro draws attention to the architecture of the contemporary art museum. By paring back the number of objects in the rooms, emphasis is placed on the glass structure of the building, which was designed by Jean Nouvel in 1994. However, although the architectural focus is fitting to the occasion, the accompanying exhibits are obscure and lack consistency: in one of the rooms, a bucket of water moves around, and in another, visitors are made to sit under a giant flat screen, hung low and facing towards the ground.

We found ‘Les Habitants’ much more compelling. Visitors are immersed in works by major artists, while Argentinan artist Guillermo Kuitca plays the middleman. He draws links between the works of art with his own pieces, and gets creative with the gallery space and décor. Kucita creates a universe that touches on Artavazd Pelechian’s magnificent film (an ode to the natural world), Brazilian painter Tarsila do Amaral’s modernism, Francis Bacon’s fleshy figures, and the red velvet living-room of David Lynch’s ‘Twin Peaks’. ‘Les Habitants’ skilfully celebrates dialogue between artworks – an approach to modern art advocated by the Cartier Foundation over the past three decades.