BETWEEN MYTH, SACREDNESS, AND REALITY
This summer, at the Metaxu gallery in Toulon, a total collective installation pushed the boundaries of visual, decorative and sound arts, inspired by the epic poem The Earthly Paradise by William Morris.
David Herman, creative director and curator of global narrative experiences, continues to demonstrate creativity, imagination, and innovation. For over fifteen years, his career has encompassed diverse cross-disciplinary experiments across fashion, decorative arts, gastronomy, music, and film. From Condé Nast to the Centre Pompidou, by way of the Cannes Film Festival and Pierre Yovanovitch, he collaborates with numerous artists, agencies, and magazines to create worlds and stagings with a strong narrative focus.
This summer, in Toulon, at the Metaxu gallery, a place of research and creation, he surrounded himself with multidisciplinary artists Audrey Guimard, Lia Rochas-Pàris and Clara Gobert to conceive "The Earthly Paradise: At the sources of the world after".
This total installation was inspired by William Morris's epic poem, a collection of mythical and legendary tales, first published in 1868. In it, the author expressed his need and quest for a better life on Earth. David Herman extracted its essence into a lyrical narrative, combining visual, decorative, and sound arts.
THE SACRED AND THE MODERN
This reinterpretation of The Earthly Paradise is thus conceived as a universe where the mythical origins of the world blend with the refined and realistic aesthetic of a hotel room. The exhibition offered a mix of plaster sculptures, wall collages of surreal silhouettes, unique objects, and monumental furniture. These fantastical settings were enriched by contemplative tablecloths by Benoît Bottex, antiques selected by the Arles-based gallery owner Anne Carpentier, and a selection of pieces by the designer Axel Chay.
Visitors were thus drawn into a holistic experience where the sacred, art, and innovation intertwined, with water as the central theme—a symbol of life, purification, and rebirth. "With the depletion of this vital resource, the exhibition primarily raises the question of the sacralization of our domestic spaces," explains David Herman.
DISTANT PAST AND COSMIC FUTURE
The artists breathed new life into this element, restoring its redemptive power "without getting lost in the illusion that paradise lies elsewhere." Like William Morris's epic poem, this hybrid world explored Greek and Norse mythologies, while the soundtrack underscored the fear of imminent chaos, echoing contemporary society.
Moreover, he pushed the boundaries of thought at the intersection of "historical archaism and the poetic avant-garde, raw minerality and feminine sensuality, mythological iconography and esoteric strangeness." Everything thus contributed to illustrating the vision of the end of civilization and the quest for a better future. This immersive approach was punctuated by a series of happenings during the exhibition, thereby reinforcing the role of the Metaxu gallery as a key player in the Mediterranean art scene.
METAXU.FR
