BENJAMIN LOYAUTÉ
EXPERIENCING THE ORDINARY

2018

PALAIS DE LA PORTE DORÉE, PARIS

BENJAMIN LOYAUTÉ

Benjamin Loyauté (born 1979 in Normandy, France) divides his time between Brussels, Beirut and New York. He defines himself as a “tale manufacturer” and his work combines films, sculptures, public events and immersive installations. He takes his inspiration from literature, film, archaeology, the history of technology, geography and geopolitics. Since 2014, he has been gradually building up a work like a book made up of chapters. This work-in-progress takes a multidisciplinary approach  that draws on poetics, the supernatural and documentary. His research and his work lie at the boundaries of cross-disciplinary systems and explore the power of objects’ magical and political language.
In 2016, he presented his Heterotopia installation in London and unveiled his film The Astounding Eyes of Syria – le bruit des bonbons. Solo exhibitions and installations of his work have been held at the MAMC in Saint-Etienne; at the Casino Forum d’art contemporain and MUDAM in Luxembourg; at the Palazzo Clerici & Del Stellite in Milan; at the MAD and the KANAL-Centre Pompidou in Brussels; at the Power Station of Art in Shanghai and at Somerset House in London.

Invited by Rubis Mécénat cultural fund, Benjamin Loyauté presents, for his first solo exhibition in France, the latest chapter of his work-in-progress at the Palais de la Porte Dorée, Paris, inaugurated for Nuit Blanche.
With this exhibition, the artist pursues his meditation on the magic of the ordinary and the importance of the intangible heritage in our societies, through a work that intertwines film, installation, sculpture and performance. The work that triggered this focus on the ordinary, Candygraphy, is an edible sweet/sculpture whose shape calls to mind a strange, ancient sculpture.
The exhibition encourages visitors to think about the paradox and the radicality revealed by our relationship to the simple things that surround us yet escape our notice ; thus challenging our perception of the ordinary.