Loris Greaud - Ladi Rogeurs - Sir Loudrage. Glorius Read.

The young French conceptual artist Loris Greaud (born 1979) transforms exhibition spaces into opulent stages: vivid walk-in settings where materials full of history and narrative sculptural constellations converge. Starting at Max Hetzler in Paris and then shifting like a cinematic cross-fade to the gallery's Berlin venue, Greaud blurs the boundaries between reality and mythical fiction in a diffuse violet light from which the sculptures emerge: electrified spores hanging from the ceiling; ceramics violently modeled with plastic explosives; pits in the gallery floor filled with rubble from the set of Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker; and a complex object shaped like a tree whose branches seem to be flailing under lightning strokes - a strange landscape constructed from dead objects as a contemporary form of vanitas. The book guides us through Loris Greaud's magnificent tableaux in a series of installation views and closer shots of the works accompanied by explanatory texts. QR codes link to exhibition trailers and videos of the pieces in action, including a third stage at the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, with a text by its director Fabrice Hergott introducing us to an artistic universe full of dark beauty.