Clouds

Collective show

With Nao Tamura, Hannah Bohnen, Sam Baron, Anna Pavlova, Aléa (Miriam Josi & Stella Lee Prowse), John Pawson, Sati Leonne, Guillaume Bouisset, Bianca Lee Vasquez

8 September — 30 October 2022

“We know how much a cloud weighs, how it is formed, what its energy is. Apart from the water it contains - a neutral element - we do not know what it means from the point of view of life.” - Gilles Clement 

Gaston Bachelard who works on the phenomenology of imagination says «The dreamer always has a cloud to transform. The cloud helps us to dream about transformation.» According to the philosopher, clouds are the objects of reverie, they are the easiest and perhaps laziest element for reverie because they can transform into anything and allows one to think about transformation. Reverie of clouds’ provides movement which transforms the material imagination into dynamic imagination. Clouds are temporary, that they have the character of being out of a certain form, they are always in mutation and transformation, in metamorphosis, and their mirror character makes them a metaphor. The word "cloud" is becoming more dominant than ever in our lives, but we can't keep clouds in our sights. The word cloud that moves quickly like real clouds are the reason for disconnecting from the reality and materiality of clouds, today Sainte Anne Gallery questions what cloud matters for our imagination in design. Sainte Anne Gallery which honours the Cycles of nature in the art world chooses the most questionable element of nature to tell a unique visual story during Paris Design Week. Between sky and earth, water and gas, clouds represent the metamorphosis of nature, they are mostly temporary, transformative, and ephemeral. Thanks to their mysterious, chaotic, and very complex existence, they have been challenging the history of art, from painting to sculpture. In this exhibition, Sainte Anne Gallery reimagines the materiality of clouds with the morphological designs of Nao Tamura, Hannah Bohnen, Sam Baron, Anna Pavlova, Aléa Work, Sati Leonne, John Pawson, and Guillaume Bouisset. Through this exhibition, we take on a journey from metaphor to material, from the invisible to the visible, and from nothing to being…

Text by Sewal Yuruten