Tamina Amadyar, Eugène Carrière, Paul-Emile Colin, Peter Dreher, Gaspard Dughet, Camille-Auguste Gastine, Nicolás Guagnini, Anna Hulačová, Anna Lea Hucht, Daniel Roth, Jamie Isenstein, Eva Koťátková, Laura Lamiel, Pierre Lélu, John Miller, Hendl Helen Mirra, Jonathan Monk, Meret Oppenheim, Paulo Nazareth, Nicolas-Marie Ozanne, David Thorpe, Batista Vicentino, William Anastasi, Marcelle Cahn, Miriam Cahn, Santiago de Paoli, Prinz Gholam, Elodie Seguin, Irene Kopelman, Imre Pán (estate of) Heute Nacht geträumt. Dreamed Last Night

Heute Nacht geträumt (Dreamed last night)

For the inaugural exhibition at Meyer Riegger Wolff, we imagined a project that would allow a glimpse of the energies set in motion by our new space within the ecosystem of contemporary art in Korea.

This undertaking lies at the intersection of several research lines—some personal, others shared with the artistic direction of the gallery.

1. It begins with the encounter¹ with Isabelle Pichet’s² remarkable research on the singular art of the French Salons in the eighteenth century. Her work opens a dizzying meditation on the curatorial role, embodied in the figure of the Tapissier. This was the artist appointed by peers to orchestrate the hanging of the yearly Salon exhibition, then held at the Louvre in Paris. The Tapissier freely selected from the works submitted and arranged them from floor to ceiling, covering the walls entirely, like a woven tapestry. Though seemingly
free, this dense constellation followed a set of conventions, which may be distilled into six categories: Touche-touche hanging hanging without empty space), Taste, Harmony, Symmetry, Character, Hierarchy.

2. Secondly, there is a matter of taste, as Jocelyn Wolff hold a particular affection for Gabriel de Saint-Aubin³ (1724–1780) and for Charles de Saint-Aubin—whose papillonnerie we once presented in an exhibition devoted to Surrealism⁴. Gabriel de Saint-Aubin himself served as Tapissier, but also chronicled the Salons in meticulous drawings, which today hold both historical and poetic value—just as precious as his scenes of Parisian street life. It is to him that this exhibition is dedicated.*

3. To revisit the art of the eighteenth-century Salons through the lens of a contemporary exhibition devoted to drawing seemed to us especially fertile. It allowed us to step outside the established codes of contemporary display : the white cube, the minimalism, or the eye-level hanging. For more than twenty years, Meyer Riegger in Berlin and Karlsruhe, together with Galerie Jocelyn Wolff in Paris, have fostered artistic experimentation, encouraging artists to explore new forms and formats. Thus, to imagine an exhibition format that draws on European history, yet resists the strictures of contemporary conventions, is to open a field of possibilities, possibilities we are eager to share with the Asian art scene, itself engaged in weaving together its own traditions with the fabric of international contemporary art.

4. Our exhibition is therefore built around two methodological axes:

- Drawing, approached across time, revealing the breadth of possibilities that arise when our two German and French galleries join inventories and forces;
- Thematic constellations, in the manner of Saint-Aubin’s Salons. These themes include: the face, the hand, the landscape, the urban landscape, the still life, …

5. Thus, rare treasures, such as an anonymous eighteenth-century astronomical drawing, are brought into dialogue with important works by Miriam Cahn, or with William Anastasi’s conceptual self-portraits drawn blindfolded. Anonymous gestures meet celebrated signatures. And was this not, in essence, the very promise of the Salons—that through such juxtapositions, the viewer might exercise their judgment, comparing, discerning, and discovering anew?**

Captions:

1- Conference organized by the Pavillon Bosio, École Supérieure d’Arts Plastiques de la Ville
de Monaco, on the theme of scenography created by artists, held at the Théâtre des Variétés in Monaco, December 4–6, 2024.

2- Isabelle Pichet, art historian

3- See also the exhibition dedicated to his work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, this year.

4- Charles de Saint-Aubin, Essai de papillonneries humaines, 1756-1760

Bibliography
Isabelle Pichet, Le tapissier et les dispositifs discursifs au Salon (1750–1789), Hermann, 2012.