Damien Deroubaix presents “La Valise d’Orphée” at Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature
With “La Valise d’Orphée”, Damien Deroubaix presents the first exhibition of the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature since its reopening. Under the artistic direction of Joanna Chevalier, the French artist (represented by the gallery In Situ – fabienne leclerc) recreates a primitive cave populated by 300 zoomorphic figurines, some of them thousands of years old. These statuettes were collected around the Mediterranean basin by Naji Asfar, who has been collecting miniature sculptures since 1977. They are now at the center of this exhibition that brings prehistory into the third millennium. Around these thousand-year-old figurines, which were once believe to have prophylactic properties, Damien Deroubaix presents a series of paintings and sculptures surrounding them as if to protect them from the misdeeds of history. Thus, the artist draws from the past to question the interactions between Man and nature in a museum that has always placed it at the center of our concerns. Reopened last July after two years of work, the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature has now been enlarged and equipped with new spaces dedicated to ecology and biodiversity.
