Elmgreen & Dragset

While their name immediately recalls the installations “Prada Marfa” in the Texas desert or “Van Gogh’s Ear” on New York’s Fifth Avenue, Parisians are currently able to get acquainted with the work of Elmgreen & Dragset at Galerie Perrotin. The Scandinavian duo presented their first exhibition in Paris just in time for FIAC. On the ground floor, their urban landscape seems to have been ravaged by a natural disaster. The giant pieces of asphalt look like fragile ice pack on which we can see the traces of urban life. Upstairs, visitors find the reshaped pools and inverted diving boards the artists are known for, as well as an inaccessible round bar in the tradition of their “Powerless Structures”. Elmgreen & Dragset were also chosen to participate in FIAC’s Hors Les Murs programme on Place Vendôme, where they presented “To Whom it May Concern”, an invasion of a hundred starfish on the Parisian pavement, as if the sea had taken over the city. A few hours before the exhibition opening, Say Who met with the duo to discuss the society conventions, the white cube and what’s humor means for them.