Nashville: Denis Savary: Kunsthaus Biel

Over the past two decades, video artist, sculptor, and scenographer Denis Savary (*1981) has cultivated a body of work that is at once intellectually provocative and playfully evocative. His exhibitions construct immersive narratives where the mundane and the minute intersect with grandiose imagery and fantastical storytelling. For his latest exhibition at Kunsthaus Biel Centre d’Art Bienne, the spacious Salle Poma becomes a stage for both existing and newly conceived sculptures, as well as a new film presented within a meticulously crafted scenographic arrangement.

 

At the heart of the exhibition lies an earlier project developed in 2016 for the centenary of the Dada movement. On that occasion, Savary created Lagune, a choreography featuring a puppet of Sophie Taeuber-Arp set against a luminous backdrop of plexiglass architectural facades, animated by dancers. After performances in Paris, Zurich, and Geneva, the piece made its final appearance in 2018 on the rooftop terrace of EMST, the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens, with the Parthenon as its dramatic backdrop. A recording of this last performance was later edited to create Athens (2018–2025), a video now displayed in the passage leading to the Salle Poma. This piece serves as a scenographic overture, preparing viewers for the experience ahead.

 

The exhibition’s title provides insight into Savary’s approach. Nashville, Tennessee—famed for its music scene—is also known in the United States for its cultural and educational institutions, earning it the nickname “Athens of the South.” In the late 19th century, a replica of the Parthenon was constructed there, later restored in 1920 and further embellished in 1990 with a reproduction of the lost Athena statue. These historical echoes of replication, decay, and reinterpretation resonate throughout Savary’s exhibition. While all works on view have been created specifically for this show, they are reinventions of previous pieces, arranged in a manner that mirrors the Athens video. One such element, a low backlit wall, subtly evokes the rooftop terrace of the Greek museum, introducing a spatial ambiguity—an outdoor architectural fragment transported indoors. Sculptural pieces along this wall reinforce the effect, their forms oscillating between miniature ancient ruins and the distinctive radiators of the Centre d’Art’s historic building. In reality, they are transformed, whitened versions of Savary’s earlier works, influenced by Constantin Brancusi, Philip Guston, and even ice hockey shin guards.

 

This interplay of interior and exterior extends to Figueras (2021–2025), a series of semi-transparent fiberglass parasols that evoke both elaborate costumes and delicate confections. Equipped with LED lighting systems, these sculptures shift between soft glows and abrupt stroboscopic flashes, as if they contained the very storm they are designed to shield against. The wooden platform on which they rest simultaneously recalls the casual elegance of a café terrace and the fragility of a raft drifting through the exhibition space. At the same time, the work’s eerie romanticism draws parallels to Arnold Böcklin’s Isle of the Dead, with the parasols standing in for the painting’s cypress trees.

 

Suspended from the ceiling, Charm (2025) is a glass sculpture crafted using the recycling technique known as “bousillé.” Initially inspired by a ritual doll, its crude puppet-like form and milky translucency lend it an ambiguous presence—floating between a satellite, a marine creature, or an improbable disco ball in an abandoned nightclub. This motif of desolate festivity recurs throughout Savary’s practice, including in his early video Le Must (2004), presented at Hochparterre.

 

A final work, Night Shift (2025), underscores Savary’s engagement with vernacular imagery and peripheral narratives. Inspired by a fountain in a Geneva park, the sculpture features stacked conical basins resembling the capitals of ancient Greek columns—a nod to a similar structure found in Bienne’s municipal park. Throughout art history, from Marcel Duchamp to Meret Oppenheim, fountains have often served as sites of avant-garde experimentation and provocation. Yet, in Savary’s interpretation, the fountain suggests a village square, subtly shaping the exhibition’s atmosphere. A sleeping owl, captured mid-tagging by a Swiss civilian, appears within the piece—its wings stretched open by unseen hands. As the nocturnal guardian of this shadowy exhibition, the owl not only heightens the show’s enigmatic tone but also serves as a final nod to Athens, recalling the wisdom of the goddess Athena herself.

 

Through Athens, Denis Savary constructs a layered and evocative environment where historical echoes, spatial ambiguities, and poetic gestures coalesce. By reinterpreting and repurposing his own past works, he invites viewers into a world where time folds upon itself, and meaning emerges through the interplay of light, form, and memory.