This summer (until September 13th, 2015), the Palais de Tokyo is hosting an exhibition that ressembles no other. Completely subverting the usual codes of artistic performance, Acquaalta offers a unique and highly unusual experience. We may be used to figuratively navigating among art pieces at regular exhibitions, but artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot is truly making the experience as literal as it gets. The Acqua Alta is the name of the annual flooding of the laguna of Venice by the Adriatic sea. For this ambitious installation, Boursier-Mougenot decided to flood the space of the Palais de Tokyo, and take us for a boat ride in a totally hypnotic visual, auditory and tactile journey.
Seated on gondolas and taking turns to paddle, the visitors will be submerged in the art piece itself. In a dark and poetic landscape, they will be taken along the water and rocked by mysterious sculptural, visual and audio installations. The visit is to be experienced like a dream, a slow journey filled with sensations and questionings. For Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, the visitor is not an outside observer of the artistic installation, but as the actor, the subject and the object of the exhibition all together. Just like the flow of water, sounds and images, the flow of visitors is a part of this peculiar exhibition. This flow will pause at one point, when the visitors will be invited to board an island and lie down in order to absorb the images and sounds with a different perspective. As if time could be stopped just for a moment, just enough to take the time to fully embrace what usually only passes by.
This hallucinatory journey is a parenthesis that will bring some to forget themselves and get carried away by the hypnotic sensory experience, while others will reach a state of full self-awareness and let their thoughts resonate with the piece. Whichever type you may be, Acquaalta is definitely an experience you must not miss.
Practical information
Palais de Tokyo
13, avenue du Président Wilson,
75 116 Paris
Opening hours
From 12 noon to 12 midnight every day except Tuesday
How to go
Metro: line 9 / Iéna and Alma Marceau stations
RER : line C / Pont de l’Alma station
Bus : routes 32, 42, 63, 72, 80, 92
Admission charges
Rate: 10€
Reduced rate: 8€ - Visitors under 26 years old, teachers, seniors, house artists, groups of more than 10 people, and members of partner institutions Tokyopass
Free admission : Under 18 years-old, job seekers, those in receipt of income support, Ministry of Culture and Communication, ICOM, IKT, journalists, lecturer-guides, teacher pass, those in receipt of pension credit, registered disabled person and accompanying person (on presentation of documentation no more than three months old).