"In the air, flying machines" from March 22 to September 10, 2023

"Since airplanes cover the entire planet, we had to invite artists from all continents, in order to verify how from North to South, from East to West, they have the same fascination and dreams of flight. Not only the contemporary jet-artists who have become tireless travelers, but also the rough artists like André Robillard, Pierre Petit, Giovanni Galli, Giuseppe Barocchi, Jean Smilowski who, amazed by these birds of the air, build, draw and invent in a poetic and obsessive way, small airplanes, sputniks, models, up to conceive like Arthur Vanabelle an airplane farm. Fascinated or terrified, because planes often carry bombs and are therefore linked to war. The exhibition "In the air" thus presents about fifty works of artists, mixing videos, films, installations, paintings, drawings, models and archives."

Marie-Laure Bernadac, curator of the exhibition

"Nothing will ever equal the moment of hilarity that took hold of my existence, when I felt that I was fleeing from the Earth. {...} Then I gave myself up to the view offered to me by the the great masses of nature and the immensity of the horizon. I contemplated the wave of the air and the earthly vapors that rose from the bosom of the valleys and rivers. In the midst of the inexpressible rapture of this contemplative ecstasy contemplative ecstasy, I was the only body illuminated in the air I saw all the rest of nature nature plunged in the shade {...} I was peacefully questioning peacefully all my sensations. I listened to myself, so to speak.

Jacques Charles, engineer, during his first airship trip on the 1stst December 1783.

The inaugural exhibition is organized by Art Explora, invited by the Hangar Y as part of its sponsorship program. It pays tribute to the primary function of the place by choosing flying machines as its theme. Starting from the universal fascination of the human being for flight and the numerous inventions allowing to reach this objective, the curator of the exhibition Marie-Laure Bernadac, in collaboration with Blanche de Lestrange, focused on the way these means of elevation and transport in the air and their transformations over time have inspired artists. If the beginnings of these innovations could be found as early as the Renaissance in Leonardo da Vinci's sketches, and the advent of the first flying machines in the nineteenth century inspired the artistic avant-garde of the early twentieth century as much as many rough artists thereafter, it is also about fifty contemporary artworks made during the last three decades that the exhibition brings together here.

Beginning with a drawing of Jules Verne's great hot air balloon (Jorge Mendez Blake), the exhibition presents a selection of poetic paintings, (Devambez, Spillaert) contemplative or political videos, monumental sculptures playing on the misuse of machines, photographs or models. Dans l'air thus brings together major figures of international artistic creation such as Adel Abdessemed, Doug Aitken, Fiona Banner, Alighiero Boetti, Mircea Cantor, Ali Cheri, Sylvie Fleury, the duo Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Camille Henrot, Sophie Jung, Robert Longo, Ahmet Öğüt, Laure Prouvost, Shimabuku or Roman Signer, as well as art brut figures such as André Robillard, highlighting their shared interest in the history, technology, form and aesthetics, function or symbolism of these flying objects. The exhibition also highlights fascinating objects and collections around the flying object, planes, airships, collections around the Balloonmania, wind tunnel models, collections of the Museum of Air and Space and archival images to pay tribute to the essential history of this building in aerostation and atraumatic.

The inaugural exhibition is organized by Art Explora, invited by the Hangar Y as part of its sponsorship program

In media partnerships with

The scenography

The scenography of the inaugural exhibition is directed by the NC agency, created by Nathalie Crinière. The agency has notably signed the scenographies of the Galerie Dior, the Musée Carnavalet and "Shocking! Les mondes surréalistes d'Elsa Schiaparelli" at the Musée des Arts décoratifs. This scenography plays on the obsessive character of a curiosity cabinet of flying objects and is an invitation to discover the imagination of these geniuses and crazy artists.

Agence NC was founded by Nathalie Crinière. It explores all types of exhibitions and museum displays: permanent or temporary, small or large, heritage or thematic, modest or spectacular, cultural or event-based, the agency's signature applies to a wide variety of projects. The agency's activity is spread over the major cultural sites in France and abroad. Driven by intuition and curiosity, Agence NC proposes stagings whose ambition of form and content makes each project unique.

Around the exhibition

A new sound mediation course

12 listening stations (6 for adults - 6 for children) distributed throughout the exhibition, enabling visitors to discover a work in greater detail. Visitors are invited to flash a QR code placed near a work to access the sound content independently with their personal phones.

Take a close look at this work. Do you think it's a painting, a drawing or a photo? And can you tell what it represents? Auden gives you all the answers and more in this new episode!

A sound capsule based on the work "Untitled (B-58 Hustler)" (2010) by artist Robert Longo.