Éric Lacan: All Monsters Are Human
This exhibition showcases a creature made up of crows, dogs, hyenas and cockerels, aggressive portraits of animals to portray man’s projections of fear. Who is human? Who is monster?
Éric Lacan has devoted 2014 to preparing for his solo show at the Openspace Gallery. The art gallery has invited him to take over a 600m2 space in the very heart of Paris in the stunning architectural setting of the Bastille Design Center.
The polysemy of the title All Monsters are Human shows how man projects his fears and worries of the other. A monster, someone whose ugliness or deformity provokes disgust or inspires fear, is also someone with deviant behaviour or who doesn’t conform to accep- table social norms. Who is human? Who is monster? Being human doesn’t mean being humanist so how do you describe humanity in a moral sense? The exhibition asks visitors a number of interesting philosophical questions.
Thirty or so pieces are exhibited alongside a selection of signed and numbered photos. This exhibition showcases a creature made up of crows, dogs, hyenas and cockerels, aggressive portraits of animals to portray man’s projections of fear. There are also four painted portraits of women named Lux, Bonny, Mary and Therese (as a reference to the movie Virgin Suicides), presenting death from a seductive perspective alongside other cut paper portraits which show the artist’s brilliance. This is the first time in France that a gallery has organised an exhibition with as great a focus on scenography by plunging the visitor into an immersive artistic atmosphere and awakening all the senses from hearing to smell, up to to the all black dress code imposed during the opening, with masks and masks distributed at the entrance.
