Today Will Happen

Ever faithful to its desire to spotlight the emerging scene in extramural shows, especially on the occasion of international art events such as the 12th edition of the Gwangju Biennale, Palais de Tokyo has joined with the Institut Français and the Asia Culture Center/Asia Culture Institute to present Today Will Happen as part of the Pavilion Project of the Biennale.

Today Will Happen brings together 12 artists from the French and Asian scenes who are inspired by language as a motor for invention and the metamorphoses of form. The exhibition takes its title from Michel Houellebecq’s poem of the same name, published in The Art of Struggle in 1996, which serves as a thread between the artworks. In it, the author describes the jaded access to self-awareness in an urban world that transforms bodies into projectiles. An analogous process of transformation has been inflicted on Michel Houellebecq’s poem: Diffused through the spaces of the building, it is successively translated, reinterpreted, sung and distorted by a Korean poet, a group of pansori singers and a DJ, until it becomes totally unrecognizable. The poem is thus used as a material that inspires, before being blurred and modified once more by its association with the works of the exhibition.

With: Berdaguer & Péjus, Yun Choi, Julien Creuzet, David Douard, Michel Houellebecq,Young-Gyu Jang, Tarik Kiswanson, Mire Lee, Léonard Martin, Hao Ni, Louise Sartor

Palais de Tokyo has since 2013 been conducting an “off-site” program dedicated to emerging creation, which has given rise to several projects abroad and in France:
In parallel to the Biennale de Lyon (in 2013 and 2015), with MoMA PS1 and the Stedelijk Museum (2014), during Art Basel Hong Kong in 2015, at ICA Singapore at Art Stage Singapore, as well as in Zurich, during the biennale of contemporary art MANIFESTA 11 (2016). In 2017 collaborations included the exhibition Singing Stones, presented in partnership with Institut Français at the Roundhouse in Chicago during the sixth edition of EXPO CHICAGO and an “off-site” exhibition in the Cloître de la Cathédrale du Puy-en-Velay and at the Château de Villeneuve-Lembron. Palais de Tokyo was also present for the 49th edition of the Rencontres de la photographie d’Arles in June 2018.

Free entrance

Co-produced by Palais de Tokyo and Asia Culture CenterㆍAsia Culture Institute
Co-curated by Jean de Loisy and Sungwon Kim
An exhibition presented as part of the off-site programme of Palais de Tokyo and Institut français
As part of the Pavilion Project of the 12th edition of the Gwangju Biennale
Supported by French Embassy and French Institute in South Korea