Barbe à Papa

This exhibition brings together a selection of works by more than 50 artists – sculptures, installations, videos, paintings, performances – that share material, formal, or cultural affinities with elements of the funfair. The works are thus made of air, electricity, steel, and plastic, but also of sugar and oil.

Barbe à Papa suggests that the funfair might be a privileged place to attempt to reach closer to the sky. Think of the attractions one finds there: today Ferris wheels and roller coasters, in the past greasy poles and aerial rides. Bodies take flight, balloons float, sugar turns into cumulonimbus clouds. All these elements participate in the pursuit of suspending earthly gravity.

Barbe à Papa is also an attempt to bring together – on historically grounded terms – the funfair and the exhibition, to understand what mechanisms they share, but also to raise the question: what can the museum learn today from the funfair? And finally: is a work of art, too, always, in some way, an attraction?

Cédric Fauq, exhibition curator
Chief Curator at Capc, Head of the Projects Department

With works by: Bogdan Ablozhnyy, Alfredo Aceto, Lutz Bacher, Bertille Bak, Ericka Beckman, Meriem Bennani, Kasper Bosmans, AA Bronson, Chila Burman, Julien Ceccaldi, René Clair, Mathis Collins, Matt Copson, Jesse Darling, Kevin Desbouis, Eliza Douglas, Dr. Eugène Doyen, Marcel Duchamp, Cécile di Giovanni, Anders Dickson, Natacha Donzé, Stano Filko, Nicholas Grafia, Ram Han, EJ Hill, Carsten Höller, Agata Ingarden, Silas Inoue, Ken Jacobs, Gregory Kalliche, Matthew Langan Peck, Miriam Laura Leonardi, Ghislaine Leung, Thomas Liu Le Lann, Johann Lurf, Fabrizio Milani & Andrea Dal Molin, Arash Nassiri, Gyan Panchal, Russell Perkins, Harilay Rabenjamina, Pierre-Lin Renié, Christophe de Rohan Chabot, Diane Severin Nguyen, Israel Urmeer, Julie Villard & Simon Brossard, Kristin Walsh, Bri Williams, Mara Wohnhaas, Cici Wu, Dena Yago, Vivien Zhang, Jenkin Van Zyl.