Philippe Parreno: Places and Spaces

The Pola Museum of Art presents Philippe Parreno’s Places and Spaces, his largest solo presentation to date in Japan. Encompassing his diverse practice, and spanning early works of the 1990s through to the present day, the exhibition unfolds in Pola Museum of Art’s Galleries 1, 2, 5 and the outdoor setting.

Parreno’s groundbreaking approach to the presentation of works alters the paradigm of the exhibition, and poses profound questions regarding the ways in which art can be explored and interpreted. He challenges concepts of art and authorship, collaborating with artists, architects, musicians and scientists; and integrating time as a factor in its own right. Drawing on a variety of media including film, sound, objects, and text, but also advanced technologies including AI and robotics, allows him to deconstruct narrative structures to establish works that constantly evolve. Playful manipulation of familiar objects such as pianos, lamps, window blinds and balloons creates poetic situations in which movement and silence, melancholy, humor and critique intersect.

Philippe Parreno has meticulously transformed the space of the Pola Museum of Art into a labyrinth of signs, where spectral presences, voices, intermittent lights, and encrypted messages configure a dramatic sequence. Stepping into a venue resembling a large-scale theatrical set, viewers are immersed in a disorienting and sensorial experience similar to a fleeting dream, a journey, or, as Parreno suggests, something like a film.

A major highlight on view is Parreno’s celebrated film Marilyn. Created in 2012, Marilyn conjures up Marilyn Monroe through a phantasmagoric séance in a suite at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York, where she stayed in the 1950s. Her presence is evoked by means of three algorithms: the camera stands for her eyes; a computer reconstructs the prosody of her voice and a robot recreates her handwriting. The Hollywood icon is incarnated in an image that reveals to be an automaton, something resembling a human, and yet not quite real. The film is presented in dialogue with several heaps of snow (Snow Drift, 2024), a heliostat (Heliotrope, 2023-24) reflecting the sun’s path from the outside, and a piano playing on its own. In this everchanging landscape and soundscape, the public experiences elements of interplay between each work.

A tribute to a text by Pier Paolo Pasolini on the disappearance of fireflies, L’article des lucioles (1993–2024) is placed on a tree in the museum’s garden. Only activated after hours, it is flickering yet not visible to audiences. This early work goes along with other reinterpretations of large-scale installations from the 1990s, such as My Room is Another Fish Bowl and Speech Bubbles.

Another notable aspect of this exhibition is its focus on the artist’s extraordinary achievements as a draftsman, with 43 intricate drawings on view. In the gallery containing these drawings, display cases flicker on and off, and glass cycles between transparency and opacity, dramatically disrupting and altering the viewing experience. The drawings depict scenes from the future and various imaginary places and spaces, while glass lamps flash in sync with Donald Byrd’s 1975 track “Places and Spaces”.  

One of the most prominent French artists working today, Philippe Parreno has been active at the forefront of the contemporary art scene since the 1990s. In 2016 Parreno presented the prestigious Hyundai Commission in the Turbine Hall (Tate Modern, London) and, in 2013, he was the first artist to take over the entire 22,000 square metre gallery space of the Palais de Tokyo (Paris).

The exhibition is supported by EASTERN SOUND FACTORY CO.,Ltd., Yamaha Corporation, Yamaha Music Japan Co., Ltd., Esther Schipper, in association with Ambassade de France au Japon / Institut français du Japon.

Curated by Suzuki Kota (Senior Curator, Pola Museum of Art), Kondo Moe (Curator, Pola Museum of Art).

Press inquiries
Pola Museum of Art Public Relations Office (within Platinum, Inc.), polamuseum-pr@vectorinc.co.jp