Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve
Carte blanche à Camille Bréchignac
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Tai Shani , England
Tai Shani, Our Astrolatrous Commune, 2023 © Fabio Mantegna
Carte blanche granted to Camille Bréchignac
Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve is thrilled to announce a solo show by Tai Shani in its Project Room, a proposal by Camille Bréchignac who has been entrusted with a curatorial Carte Blanche.
Winner of the prestigious Turner Prize in 2019, alongside Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Helen Cammock and Oscar Murillo, Tai Shani has established herself as one of the most influential and innovative artists of her generation in England. Yet, her work remains little-known in France, where it has rarely been exhibited, with the exception of a specific commission for the foyer of Lafayette Anticipations during the Festival Échelle Humaine in 2023.
Renowned for her multi-disciplinary practice combining installations, films, performances and texts, Tai Shani conjures up historical, mythological and literary figures to construct a visual and narrative universe at once grotesque, kitsch and gothic.
The show at Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve will feature key elements from her recent exhibition at Cosmic House in 2024. There, Tai Shani explored the mimesis between body and architecture, transforming Cosmic House into an organic extension of the human anatomy. Each element of his installation embodies a part of the body: sculptures evoke limbs or organs, paintings and prints suggest skin textures or blood flow, while architectural spaces become metaphors for cavities or internal structures. This anthropomorphic approach recalls historical references such as Carlo Mollino’s houses, Dali’s Pavilion of Venus, or the castles of Ludwig II of Bavaria, where architecture becomes a reflection of the intimate and the biological. They also refer to an enduring imaginary, that of the monster whose various body parts are said to be animated by a divine breath – from Prometheus, who is said to have created mankind from water and earth, to Frankenstein.
As Camille Bréchignac, curator of the exhibition, explains: “Tai Shani’s work is the precursor of a whole generation of artists emerging today, using fiction and speculation as a means of reimagining our social and political structures. His use of worldbuilding, his summoning of classical and even archaic figures, and his use of an abundant aesthetic vocabulary since 2010 have established a radical rupture that should be honored and analyzed today. It’s a great opportunity to present his work in Paris, and for visitors to discover it in such an intimate context as a Project Room.”
This exhibition is part of the Paris Gallery Weekend, offering a unique opportunity to discover or rediscover the work of this major artist in a Parisian context.
Solo show of Tai Shani
From May 17th to June 21st, 2025
The gallery
After running for 25 years a gallery outside of Paris in Barbizon, Suzanne Tarasieve opened her first space in Paris in 2003, in the Louise Weiss neighborhood. In 2008, she opened a second space, LOFT 18, offering temporary exhibition and a residency program in order to support artists from abroad.
In 2011, Suzanne Tarasieve moved her main gallery space to Le Marais, showing established and emerging artists, with an international exhibition program underlining the great historical transformations of the XXth and XXIst century.
The gallery produces and exhibits works spawning from german neo-expressionism to recent works by emerging artists. Through a cooperative and horizontal approach, the gallery is committed to supporting artists in the development of their projects and fostering encounters and dialogues between artists of different generations, exhibition curators, institutions, and journalists.
After the passing of Suzanne Tarasieve in December 2022, the gallery is taken over by her four employees who perpetuate the work of the now legendary founder.
Gallery artists
Georg Baselitz, Jean Bedez, Romain Bernini, Alkis Boutlis, Alin Bozbiciu, Thomas Buswell, Gil Heitor Cortesão, Neal Fox, Russell Crotty Nina Mae Fowler, Recycle Group, Le Gun, Jörg Immendorff, Eva Jospin, Mari Katayama, Benjamin Katz, Jürgen Klauke, Youcef Korichi, Markus Lüpertz, Shanthamani M., Boris Mikhaïlov, Lucien Murat, Ed Paschke, A.R. Penck, Tim Plamper, Sigmar Polke, Léopold Rabus, Pierre Schwerzmann, Terry Taylor, Juergen Teller, Anna Tuori, Anne Wenzel
